‘Dying’ Hitchens Talks Mortality, Religion

Posted on Aug 10, 2010

theatlantic.com

In this frank discussion with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and with Martin Amis, an ailing Christopher Hitchens stares down his own mortality and makes it clear that if he appears to embrace religion at any point during his bout with cancer, “the entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain.” —KA

I am not offended by your attacks just saddened. Only the faint of heart are.

I am aware of all that you have written. The logical outcome of not leaving Iraq until it is safe from overthrow by those who don’t trust any gov’t set up under armed occupation and supported by the occupiers must then be there indefinitely. You do realize that outcome by your stance? The same as the neo/con-libs who profess the same reason.

You seem ignorant of the fact that the USA has its finger in so many countries and increasing. Not for commerce but for arms and influence. Removing all military bases doesn’t mean isolation only someone who thinks military bases mean something more than a threat. Like if our country had Chinese & Brazilian bases all over it, I think even you would be threatened by it. There is a difference between commerce and military threats. How are we isolated by not threatening so many others with our military?

We won’t be isolated by not having military bases all over the world and spending 10X more than all the other countries on earth. Not for a Republic but certainly for an Empire. So you seem to be the one naive and ignorant for supporting this. And using their reasoning to maintain it!

It would also save us much money to put our own country in order first and be an example to others. Right now we are a poor example.

14. You have an overly simplistic view of the world NG; thus your over simplistic solutions. Nation building goes on all the time. If it isn’t the U.S. assisting people to build a nation it is someone else. Unlike you I don’t have blinders on when it comes to the good that Western enlightenment has meant to the human race. I’ve no doubt that our way far exceeds anything else being offered. Does that mean I think it perfect… IN NO WAY! Good is not as good as better and there is always room to improve. I hate the corporatocracy as much as anyone can. The weak, of necessity, will always seek agreements and aid from the strong and the wealthy. They have no other option. I won’t be around when the new theocratic republic of Iraq is in full operation but you probably will and then you’ll see the results of your myopic and overly simplistic solutions. Better you should ask how best to assist those building or rebuilding a nation.

15. The rebuilding of Germany and Japan has many parallels as well as distinct aspects to what we see with Iraq. The main differences—IMO—are that Germany and Japan were basically homogenous peoples in race, creed and language. Also they were not as fanatically evangelical as those we are dealing with in Iraq. When the smoke finally clears in Iraq, the Bush administration will be seen as responsible for one of—if not the—biggest political blunders in the history of humankind. It will, without doubt, be known as the most hubristic, blundering, inept, and totally unqualified administration to have ever led a nation into the abyss.

My reasons against direct military intervention in Iraq were manifold. They have all proved out to be right. I knew that we were heading for another Viet Nam-like conflict that would cost us blood, fortune, and prestige the world over. I knew from before Bush was even elected that he was a bumbling idiot son of the privileged. I knew that neo-conservatism had its roots in Trotsky socialism and that its founder was a Trotsky devotee. Any organization or political ideology with such overbearing Jewish influence will never prove beneficial to our republic. (No I’m not an anti-Semite.)

I was also aware of the fickleness of Americans and especially American politicians. You have proved that reason to be true with all your America-hating vitriol on a level that I have not seen since the early to mid 70s. The glee expressed by you at America’s failure in Viet Nam confirms the rightness in my oath never to pick up arms in defense of this nation again. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to more than a little schadenfreude at the thought of people like you being crushed by an enemy because of your deluded ideas that you can reason with animals. I’d die defending my loved ones and myself but I’d only die laughing at the likes of you being squashed like a bug by the enemy you embraced while spitting in the face of those that dared to answer the call—however foolish that act might have been—when the nation cried out. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

9. There are consequences to any action taken but wise decisions can work to minimize the damage. Cutting and running will only—IMO—make the situation worse. The whole concern about Iraq has been to have a stabilizing force in the area. Whether you like it or not, crude is what lubricates the world’s economy and those reserves need to be able to get to market unimpeded. Would you prefer to see billions dying of starvation and deprivation?

10. What about the good done? Isn’t it time the world start paying us back for all the good that we’ve done? Why should it be only the U.S. intervening and trying to prevent all those anuses form destroying each other? For the first time in their history the Iraqi Shiíte majority are not being oppressed by the Arab minority. For the first time in its history those anuses have an opportunity to be self-governed. For the first time since the creation of the country the Kurds are almost an entirely independent nation. The Kurds don’t fear more chemical attacks, executions, and being dispossessed from their homes and lands by Arab minorities. Would you prefer to return to the good old days of the Anfal?

11. I’m NOT for paying reparations and I demand 3 trillion dollars of oil as compensation for all the good that we’ve done there! And I find it offensive that you have no problem reaching into my pockets to soothe your guilt. If you’re such a humanitarian I ask once again: Why aren’t you in the DRC helping instead of wasting that time here commenting?

12. Most of the deaths since the early days of the war are not due to U.S. military but rather the internecine violence between fanatics of at least 4 factions killing each other. Our leaving now with the situation as it is will not put an end to the violence. Our leaving at this point in time guarantees an increase in the violence and many more deaths to come. We haven’t seen anything yet! Remove the stabilizing force that our presence is and those apes are going to go 100% ape on each other. It doesn’t bother me because I feel anyone looking to martyr himself for his god, his dog, or his political ideology should be accommodated. The fewer of them that exist in the world the better for mankind

13. You don’t even have a clue what you mean when you spout bullshit like you only want the U.S. to have commercial relations on an equal basis. What the hell does that mean? Most of those nations with whom we have commercial ties are not democracies. The U.S. can not dictate a deal. A deal is an agreement reached between at least two parties. Nations want weapons in order to protect themselves from enemies; both real and perceived. There is always going to be a largest arms dealer. Where do you propose all your fellow citizens who’ll be unemployed find new jobs? Much of our “arms sales” is nothing more than our foreign aid. The recipient nation is allowed to use a portion of that “aid” in defense spending. In other words in stead of receiving cash from the U.S. they receive an amount of arms from U.S. corporations. The “aid” money goes to the corporation. If you want to fix that problem fix our foreign aid policy. I’ve no problem with that.

1. If you find where I have stated I want the U.S. to remain “ad infinitum” please cite it.

2. I consider cutting the defense budget 90% as an idea possessed of the stupid and ignorant. The ostrich effect does no one any good NG. I want a reduction in defense spending but 90% is utterly ridiculous. Life is about surviving.

3. Actually I question you rather than make inference. Then I opine about your revisionist “might have been” history and Anointed visions. If you’re offended by that, please know that I find people who are easily offended offensive and I’m in turn offended by their being offended.

4. What you are postulating is armed resistance by citizens. If you had bothered to view the videos you’d have seen that many of the oppressors are government troops. To enter that nation with arms and supplies is AGAINST THE LAW! One of the points that I was hoping to demonstrate was that in what many here consider to be pristine territory the people there work under slave like conditions. The question is why would they do that instead of continuing with primitive agriculture or as hunter gathers? Because despite the vision of the Anointed, hunter-gatherer and primitive agriculture techniques require time and do not provide enough to sustain large populations. It isn’t an easy life in paradise. That’s why Homo sapiens develop technology. That is one of the reasons warfare is so dominate in Homo Sapien history. And as for your wanting to know about the other 194,000 years of our history simply find a Neanderthal village and ask them about Homo sapien behavior.

5. You cannot legally purchase the type and number of arms needed anywhere in the world unless you are licensed. You cannot fly a helicopter into their air space without permission. Clandestine entry into a sovereign nation is illegal, entering under false pretenses is illegal, and shipping of arms into a sovereign nation without governmental permission is illegal. Gee Zeus NG where the hell is your head at? You cannot bring a single piece of fruit into the U.S. and other nations are far more restrictive than the U.S. There is an Asian country where it is illegal to be wearing or bring in among your clothing any clothing that is of a camouflage design. Wearing camo shorts from Wal Mart will get you jailed!

6. Everything starts out as a thought. PNAC was a thought and a belief and then a bunch of misguided idiots decided it was a good idea and tried to implement it.

Your African dreams required a planetary government or a united effort by the majority of the world’s power players. There is no way to undertake such a task of enormous effort and consequences. They’re going to die because no one who can make a difference gives a shit about the poor and downtrodden.

7. The time to be against intervention is BEFORE it takes place. After intervention has taken place it is a dead issue. One must ask appropriate questions in order to get the right answers. The question today is what to do with the situation we have in hand and not questions about intervention or what could have been.

8. I have never been against leaving. It’s not a question of how or when but rather exiting the area with a stable situation that will not mean our having to return. IMO that would be leaving the area with a 3 state solution; Kurdistan, with Kirkuk as its capital, as our strongest ally and best hope for a functioning democracy (with a strong hands-off warning to Turkey), the Shiía majority with most of the land mass, and a smaller portion for the Sunnis. You do realize that the Sunni land would probably become a Wahhabis terrorist stronghold much in the same way that Afghanistan was, don’t you?

Non-intervention except when we are already there. As you have precisely stated, you want the USA to remain ad infanitum. You also consider the idea of dismantling the largest imperial domain ever as something “stupid & ignorant.” So what I say stands. However you see so much in my writing that isn’t there. You own skewing of it.

What I was postulating were volunteerism to aid humans under attack in their own countries. True the ramifications are greatly against them. Easy enough to purchase weapons abroad. Certainly the country you would be operating in (should this actually happen) would be another big problem. (Depending on the country.) You don’t seem to be able to differentiate between a thought experiment and actually wanting to do it.

You say you are against interventionism yet refuse to leave once it has been done. Whatever calamity that will happen will happen no matter when the USA (or any other country pulls out) it can’t be helped. However I am all for paying reparations for some of the harm done. One can’t pay enough for all the suffering and death inflicted.

I only want the USA to have commercial relations with all other nations on an equal basis, nothing else. We are the largest arms dealer on the planet. I want that to stop too. Are we agreed on this one item?

The only nation building that should go on are by those whose country it is. Not us or anyone else. Do we agree there?

I admit I haven’t spend hours if not weeks with expensive consultants over this because it is a thought experiment. Your input is welcome, you insults are not.

So do you stick with your neocon/neoliberal supporting ideas of staying in all countries the USA is in including Iraq? I don’t. Do we agree? Or have I somehow misread you?

PS What was done in Europe, especially Germany, and Japan were under a different set of circumstances than Iraq or Afghanistan today.

”Nation building giving people a chance to defend themselves in their own country? Curious idea. But then it is better to let them go on as is. But then I want to do it for all countries the USA is involved in in ways other than commerce. Something you are against so nation building is okay for you under some conditions. Consistency unless you can show me where the conditions warrant it. I’m flexible and will not let my thoughts reach the rigidity of jingoism and ideology.”

I can see that exposing your lack of experience and expertise with regards to project planning seems to have struck a nerve. Avoiding all the questions that you have dodged and revisionist “might have been” history doesn’t speak well for your positions.

Reading the quoted screed above I’m left with the impression that instead of a group of “altruistic holy warriors” going into the DRC to help, you are now advocating that the U.S. get involved. Is that a correct interpretation of what you are writing here GN?

If that isn’t what you mean then you have yet to answer how you plan to finance your good-will mission of military training and why you aren’t there now doing all you can to help. Would you please address those 2 issues? (U.S. Expects To Pay $6 Billion Per Year For Afghan Training-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/06/us-expects-to-pay-60-bill_n_706536.html )

If what you are really saying is that you want the U.S. to intervene please quit dodging the question and tell us how that differs from what we see happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially since the DRC government would have to be deposed, defeated, etc. in order for the U.S. to enter and take control. (You know… build a new nation.)

You also haven’t responded to the question of having to purchase weaponry and supplies illegally from gun runners on the black market if it isn’t governmental action that you’re calling for?

Please tell us how I have advocated nation building since I have maintained my position of non-intervention from the beginning? I was one of the lone voices in the wilderness on Iraq when more than 70+% of the population of this nation were for it. Iraq is much like the aftermath of the Clinton and Shrub elections… after their mismanagement of the country one was hard-pressed to find a single individual who voted for either.

Apparently you look down on the thought that we should let them (DRC) continue on as they are going. If that is so, please explain how that position is any different from your neo-conjoined brothers not wanting to let the Iraqis continue on as they were going?

When does non-intervention mean non-intervention? I ask because you advocate immediate withdrawal from Iraq yet at the same time appear to be advocating intervention by the U.S. in the DRC as long as it isn’t for commercial reasons —not only in the Congo but… ”for all countries the USA is involved in.” (Wouldn’t that include Iraq?)

NOTE: Contrary to being “wanting” my comments are very precise and reveal the shallow and duplicitous reasoning(?) of one of the Anointed. Some might even say reasoning(?) every bit as shallow and duplicitous as that of the neo-cons. Ideas—in this case solutions—have to be viable and there should also be contingency plans.

Wow, I am surprised you seed so much to take me on and still it is wanting in much of it.

However when you say I give “praise” to something like the Ottoman Empires, it is wrong. But since my observation wasn’t to your liking you do so. To use your phrase “bullshit artist” goes more to you than me. If fact you could have used that as a moniker, but “nemisis” is potent enough.

Not revision if I point out that many of the successful fighters against communism in the Mekong Delta were smashed by a USA stooge as president and they were forced to join the Communists*, it is true. Even if the history you are aware of ignored or played it down. What you can’t answer you BS past it. Fine. I think I can handle you with less verbaige.

*Troubled times make strange alliances. Though in the end it was the Communists (unfortunately) who had the most & won. Thank you USA. With special mention of USSR & China.

Your answers tend to be short, useless and to the point. So you are for the neocon/neolib empire is it? We spent 3 trillion dollars in Iraq alone. That okay with you it isn’t with me. But so far you just talk tough but drop over like in Iraq using the same “reasoning” as the neocons. Whats the difference here?

Curious you call me “left wing” but I am not.

I don’t have a narrow view of the world. I have a cynical view of Homo sapiens based on 200,000 years of historical evidence.

I am interested in seeing the other 194,000 years of written history you have access to. Or do you just mean the warfare and domination and you see little else? Humans are a mixed bag. What parts do we want and which parts do we not?

Sure… I’ve lots of ideas. Ideas on what… Iraq? ...The Congo? Can you be a little more precise and try to hold it to one or two issues at most?

Please I left it open to you to decide not for the stupid or ignorant. You can do that can’t you? I’m not taxing you am I? (From you comments it would seem so.) Pick a topic then. Your pleasure or you can just ignore me. Again your choice.

I posited an idea, you give lots of data, most of which I am aware of (surprise!) but it is a question you really haven’t answered for me beyond being against it fully and totally plus berating me besides for even contemplating it as a thought experiment that it is. But not so with our global spanning empire when you call me “ignorant” for wanting to close it down. It seems to me you are the ignorant one for using the same excuses to occupy a country into perpetuity and interfere with many others for the same reasons they give.

However I will never apologize for bringing up facts of history you don’t agree with.

Nation building giving people a chance to defend themselves in their own country? Curious idea. But then it is better to let them go on as is. But then I want to do it for all countries the USA is involved in in ways other than commerce. Something you are against so nation building is okay for you under some conditions. Consistency unless you can show me where the conditions warrant it. I’m flexible and will not let my thoughts reach the rigidity of jingoism and ideology.

Whose asking for utopia here except in your narrow compartmentalized mind as to what is and isn’t.

Just popped in between my daily changing of toilets, I like to set my moods for the day by the color of the toilet I install, I like the idea of mood designer toilets. One time I remember going three days in a Goth mood, though, I do not enjoy the black toilet, seems white is not much better in my opinion, my favorite colored toilet of all time is the New Atheist Hades Tangerine, red and blue toilet, the flames seem so real, one can almost feel them!

Night Gaunt, do you happen to wear a Mohawk and possibly have something like a tattoo which says “bite me”, on it. If so this may be sort of Goth like? I happen to know someone who always wears black all the time, but I assumed he was color blind, never thought about him being Goth?

”You were too busy reading your own points to see mine. I am not for invading anyone. If there was such a group of armed altruists they would be going to help people, arm and train them, not dominate them by any means.”

You surely are nation building as well as breaking international law, breaking the laws of a sovereign nation, and breaking the laws of the U.S. Have you though of the possibility that some of those groups you’ll be fighting might be government troops which means armed revolt against the government if you fire upon them? War ain’t pretty!

Where are your guarantees that once your “altruistic army types” get a taste of power that they won’t dominate the weaker? Can you provide some historical evidence where the strong have not dominated the weak? Have you thought about the problems encountered in controlling mobs of starving and frightened people?

Try reading books from resistance fighters on the Eastern front during WWII. Books like Rich Cohen’s “The Avengers” and anything you can find on groups like the Bielski brothers. Those should provide you with an idea of the hellish problems of trying to provide for dependents.

And your idea of training in one village and then moving on… fail! One guerilla group alone is estimated to number 9,000 men. How in the hell do you think a village of tens of recently trained women and perhaps some men are going to fight off groups that number in the thousands?

You, like all those neo-conjoined twin brothers of yours, should have joined the military. Who knows, you might have learned something.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

”Humanity may not be evolved to act in such a way”

It isn’t.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

” But it would be something positive and not for wealth & power which is bringing humanity to its downfall.”

Utopia exists only in a book and in the minds of the deluded. Dystopia is reality.

”Hard to be against them an yet think the way they do from Iraq onward. I’m for total with drawl from all our over 878 bases world wide. Cut our national security budget by 90% to start. What about you? No ideas from you yet. I wait to here your ideas.”

But I don’t think like them. Neo-cons, like you dingbat liberals, pee themselves when they see I’m around. I ask the right questions and I don’t have a deluded view of the world. I don’t belong to any political party and I don’t hold to any one political ideology because I know that regardless of the tag they’re all the same… more for us; and less for them!

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

”I’m for total with drawl from all our over 878 bases world wide. Cut our national security budget by 90% to start. What about you? No ideas from you yet. I wait to here your ideas.”

That’s the position of the stupid and the ignorant.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

” What about you?”

I’m not. But that’s because I’m not stupid or ignorant.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

”No ideas from you yet. I wait to here your ideas.”

Sure… I’ve lots of ideas. Ideas on what… Iraq? ...The Congo? Can you be a little more precise and try to hold it to one or two issues at most?

” Once we get off of oil, and off of the imperial war kick we might have a chance of saving some of us from the approaching climate catastrophe. It is already in effect and it can only get worse.”

Ahhh… geez louise. You’re shallower than a kiddie pool. Green power is bullshit!

No one is getting off oil as long as there is oil and so-called renewable resources like solar and wind are a joke. Fusion is the only alternative that comes even close to carbon based energy. Seriously NG… pull your head out of Al Gore’s butt.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

”Well then get forming, all I see is criticism of me. Your offer of, knives and insults to slice. Fine I laid it out as a proposition. You’re so blinded by your own narrow view of the world you are not much different from the NeoCons you say you are against. Hard to be against them an yet think the way they do from Iraq onward. I’m for total with drawl from all our over 878 bases world wide. Cut our national security budget by 90% to start. What about you? No ideas from you yet. I wait to here your ideas.”

I form ideas on a continuing basis. You see criticism because it’s called for. You’re like your conjoined twins the neo-cons. When their Iraq invasion and occupation plans were reviewed by professionals who knew their business and criticized as ill-conceived they excoriated the critics. Who has egg on their faces and blood on their hands today?

You have this pipe dream of going into the Congo and rescuing the oppressed and terrorized but you haven’t a clue of what it really requires and you fail to see the conundrum, the hypocrisy, of your position. The only difference between you and the neo-cons are the recipients of all that altruism that you want others to finance while you get to remain in the comforts that our empire make possible.

Who pays for all the weapons, the ammunition, the medical supplies, the vehicles, the uniforms, the explosives, the aircraft? How do you plan to feed all the refugees that will flock to your little paramilitary training unit when word gets out that they can find protection there? Do you think that just because it is not a government army that the requirements are any less? You’re not talking about a forced recon unit of 2 – 4 men going behind enemy lines to reconnoiter for a short time.

Who pays the trainees? You have to at least provide food, water, clothing, and shelter as well as arms. Who pays for all of that? How does all that liberal good citizenship altruism deal with the fact that most, if not all, of your weaponry will have to be purchased by black market gun runners? No idealistic paradoxes there?

Africa is in the mess it is today because of European colonialism and exploitation. It took several hundred years to lift that yoke from them.

I don’t have a narrow view of the world. I have a cynical view of Homo sapiens based on 200,000 years of historical evidence.

”I am not talking about nation building so you are the one needing to reread a bit more closely and slowly what I have written. I am talking about protecting human life, that is all. So far it is just an idea, humanity may not be developed enough for that kind of altruism. Such combination of abilities just may not exist in anyone. You are sure of it. (Would you want such people to exist? Ones not affected by greed or want of power or lack of interest in others lives.)”

Yes, you are. You’re talking about entering a nation illegally and supplying a paramilitary group to train and arm citizens of that nation. That’s illegal and you have no guarantees that those trained will not attempt to overthrow the government of a U.N. recognized sovereign nation.

You’re a typical left-wing bullshit artist. You speak of altruism and helping the poor and denigrate your nation but will not get off your sorry ass to help those that you feel need protection. Why aren’t you there now? What is stopping you? You want others to devote their lives—without compensation—to helping others. Well Mr. NG… why aren’t you there? You could teach people there how to sterilize water, first aid, and many other useful trades, abilities and talents.

I’ll tell you why you aren’t there NG. You’re a hypocrite and a coward. Don’t sit on your ass waiting for “others” to evolve… get out there and put your hands to the task.

”Besides their stomachs, militaries run off of oil. Pollute in any number of ways and are wasteful. Do we want more of that? Oil consumption goes up when armies march these days.”

How many years of intensive study did it take you to figure that one out?

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

”Stoned? No, but you can tell me who would stop the USA if those in charge decided to go “protect” that source of petroleum. The UN? Canada itself? The UK? The EU?”

Yes, I can. The Ducaz. When Planet X arrives in 2012 they, the Nibirians and the Ducaz, are going to control the world and all of its resources. Since the Ducaz are a superior reptilian race and eat human beings they are going to totally disarm the U.S. and use the population—due to all the 3-5 X sized fatties—as a food supply. The U.S. will be a giant corral for the Ducaz and Americans will be their cows.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

”Humm do you often give your technical expressions of psychoanalysis based upon others writings you disagree with very often? You must be popular with the debate team nor is it smart. Not conducive to dialog.”

Yes, when it’s crazy, absurd, and baseless. Like the preceding crazy about the U.S. attacking Canada for its oil.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

” Is this supernatural certainty at work? That such people exist, that they could even relieve some misery despite any gov’t interference or any brigands who have other priorities than human life? Just curious.”

No, nothing supernatural about it, on the contrary it is 100% natural and a question of economics.

Why aren’t you donating all of your time there now? Because you cannot survive without earning an income –and neither can they.

It was at my last job that one of my coworkers said I sounded “Goth” to him. I prefer dark solid colors myself but otherwise I don’t like metal on my body, no makeup, no tattoos etc. So it must have been how I looked at things. A macabre look like Poe or Lovecraft, that’s me. Over looking the racism, otherwise

I’ve been lately the center of attention of Nemesis2010 who has sadly been reduced to calling me names which suggests his tolerance level of my point of view has been passed or his idea of civil discourse is low. Either way I don’t stoop to such levels. It is unbecoming and for me inelegant. Each to his/her own standards I say. The best or most liked will win out. (Like texting will over prose.)

”In the Mekong there were plenty of groups, not Communist that didn’t like them or the leader put into power by the French and later the USA. But the US CIA called the Ho Ho and the other mixed groups who didn’t support the gov’t “communist” so Diem smashed them but not destroyed them. The remnants were forced to join the Viet Min to over throw him. Such is how the USA made communist Viet Nam possible.”

NG, you do all right until your hate-America and blame it for all that ails the world fanaticism sucks out of you what little reason you are possessed of.

Ho Chi Minh was a lifetime communist. He formed the DRV—communist—and was the prime minister of the DRV when it defeated the French. He was also the leader of the Viet Cong until he died in 69.

Your revisionist history is really something to behold. To read it one is left to wonder where are the U.S.S.R. and Moaist China. If the U.S. hadn’t been there those places would have been communist strongholds one helluva lot sooner.

Arguing this with you is useless. You’re one of those lefties that has nothing more in his little sack of goodies than to blame his country for all the world’s ills while sitting in the comfort of his 1st world nation.

We didn’t slaughter those people in Cambodia… the Khmer Rouge did! The slaughter perpetrated by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge was so gruesome that even fellow communists were appalled by it and deposed his sorry ass.

Who recognized Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge government as a legitimate government? The U.N.! Even after Viet Nam invaded and he was forced to flee and he still ruled from the border region and never lost U.N. recognition of his government’s legitimacy.

Communist fanatics murdered through the communist regimen of “purges” almost half of their fellow citizens. Not the U.S.!

” No, “the ones” are our pseudo leaders, the lackies, and those who are behind them right here in the USA.”

Wrong sunshine. “The ones” are all the aforementioned AND all parties that are involved in disrupting the opportunity that the Iraqis have before them to establish—for the first time in the history of that area—a social democracy.
And make no mistake about… our military and the Iraq government forces are fighting the Iranians and Iranian backed factions in Iraq. As well as other factions from other whacko-religious groups.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:30 pm

”Yes the USA is moving on though not in the way you think I meant. They have a garrison in Iraq, but the bulk of day-to-day will be done by their Iraqis. Funny how when the Ottomans ruled each faction had their place and they seemed happy enough, under Saddam they were more forcibly kept in line. But then the boundaries that were drawn by the British were done for their reasons regardless of what the locals wanted.”

Oh geez. Now to the Ottomans—why don’t you use the politically incorrect word? It was the Ottoman Empire. So now you’re praising an empire. Do you think the a key word might be “seemed”? What choice did they have under the Ottoman Empire?

The Iraqis have always been under heavy oppression. First with their Saudi kings and then with the military rule that overthrew the Saudi royal, followed my Mr. Personality, Saddam Hussein.
Thanks to the U.S.’s blunder they have for the first time in their history an opportunity to have a free society—a social democracy. But don’t worry, they are religious fanatics and will blow the opportunity. They’re ignorant backwater dupes.

Personally, if they blow their opportunity, I could care less if they rot in their own feces in their newly to be formed Islamic Republic theocracy… they’ll deserve it!

Whoa, I turn my back to live some non-electronic life, and when I
come back to it, I see three little pigs gangbanging Sir Leefeller, who
is well able to smack them proper, but for some reason it twinges my
sensibilities to at least say that it has happened! So we have here
another side-show of intense humor. Sir Leefeller retains the crown.

Then, our dear Night-Gaunt accused of having a “Goth vibe,” for what
reason by all of the posts I’ve ever read of his, I cannot fathom unless
he really had latent Goth notions. Hmmmmm A little digression here:
If he wears a lot of black clothing, which might be normal really, but
could be seen as a little beyond normal, black seems to be the color
(or colorless however one likes to look at the quality of black, as some
seem to think, scientists for instance, that black is the absence of color)
of choice for many Goth and also non-Goth choices, i.e., priests and
other clergy, GQ readers, and those who just like to impress the hell
out of others with their lack of color in clothing alleging a more
“colorful” personality? And black is definitely the color of choice for
Goths. So psychologists of color choices say. Home decorators use
that justification for lots of color or lack of it in homes they are
contracted to design, it is in all the home decorator text books. Or
maybe NG thinks others think he is Goth-like because his thinking is
somewhat blackish? What could that mean??? This is all in the spirit
of falderal so please take it as such.

Leaving things out when one is writing about what is thought is I
believe a common affliction. Writing is often a painful exercise to put
into written form what often is amorphous in thought. We have rules
of language that are pretty much absolutely required for cogent
thought in written form, but do not apply in thought only since
thoughts are often crowded with many thoughts at one time,
sometimes unfinished and often interrupted by priorities of what is
judged to be important. Thinking can get to be chaotic. Just consult
Sir Leefeller if you need corroboration about it. Your explanation does
well clarify your previous point of having some personal defect
“somewhere in [your] psyche that [you are] as yet unaware.” Thank
you for taking the time to make that clarification. My comment is that
it is not a defect but is a normal condition!

What seems more to count as far as one’s person is concerned, is what
one thinks about this and that and what it is of that thought that is
expressed either verbally or in writing. And whether it has any content
that merits consideration either by the Self or by others.

Now I thought Saddam Hussein murdered thousands of Kurds. http://tinyurl.com/94thsy While Kurds are most likely not innocent of
warring, it is contentious whether they were terrorists or fighting for
liberty.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x33grBe_wjQ
Notice the US involvement in these youtube reports. But this set of
videos might give you some idea of who are the Kurds. There are
three segments if you can stand it, they are worth watching. Most
informative by reporter Kevin McKiernan, not a Kurd so detached with
regard to the verity of the reportage:
“But… From the years of 1979 through 2003 human rights
organizations have documented government approved executions, acts
of torture and other crimes all under the leadership of former Iraqi
president Saddam Hussein. Some estimates of the deaths during the the
uprisings in April of 1991 range from 20,000 to 100, 000 for the Kurds
and 60,000 to 130,000 for Shi’ites. Some have estimated 800,000
deaths caused directly by Saddam—these not including the casualties
from the Iran-Iraq war.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International issued regular reports.

Well at least finding question marks behind your comments, and not the usual know it all absolutist periods is a refreshing change. Even so,...... wrong again Truthdig 3.

Now I have already provided reason for my using the word Imbecile, (my grandmother used the word as I was growing up) though occasionally I find it necessary to use some other words, like ass hole, moron, idiot and schmuck when I believe they fit or dovetail more appropriately, but calling someone an ass hole does seems quite rude, even when it fits.

Sensing a pattern of accusations or guesstimating seem to be the same thought process in the four quarters of Truthdig 3s mind tied behind back. Potty training had nothing to do with my previous phobia of toilets, why do I detect the possibility of judging others from themselves here? ....TD3 I do not know nor care about your potty training ..... Hire your own analyst!

My past phobia of toilets is a long story and it would be inappropriate spending time here explaining my phobias or your toilet training problems here on the Hitching Post. Though I will say this, ........my phobia was connected to my childhood growing up in a dysfunctional family, predominantly including my Uncle Otto who was the family drunk who was in the merchant marine, my grandmother and her fly swatter, plus some devious trickery propagated by my brother Clyde!

Weefeller wrote:
“Now I also once had a phobia of toilets…....”
________________________________________________

Weefeller,

Why did you have a phobia of toilets?! Did you have such hard time in potty training and consequently got a lot of beatings that demolished your self confidence and self esteem and gave you a lasting inforiority complex which explains that constant need to pick on people and put them down??!!

Good point TD3, if you look closely you are not the only one weefeller is fascinated with as attested to by his last post. You Truedigger3 are spearheading the movement. Here’s to you, tread lightly though for I suspect posting is the highlight of his day and any shock may revert him back to a more serious imbecilic (a word he is presently obsessed with) stage. Now I must go back to googling the word burka.

No, “the ones” are our pseudo leaders, the lackies, and those who are behind them right here in the USA.

Yes the Kurds, got short changed after WWI, and didn’t get official recognition of the homeland they have been residing in for thousands of years. Bum deal that.

Yes the USA is moving on though not in the way you think I meant. They have a garrison in Iraq, but the bulk of day-to-day will be done by their Iraqis. Funny how when the Ottomans ruled each faction had their place and they seemed happy enough, under Saddam they were more forcibly kept in line. But then the boundaries that were drawn by the British were done for their reasons regardless of what the locals wanted.

In the Mekong there were plenty of groups, not Communist that didn’t like them or the leader put into power by the French and later the USA. But the US CIA called the Ho Ho and the other mixed groups who didn’t support the gov’t “communist” so Diem smashed them but not destroyed them. The remnants were forced to join the Viet Min to over throw him. Such is how the USA made communist Viet Nam possible.

Besides their stomachs, militaries run off of oil. Pollute in any number of ways and are wasteful. Do we want more of that? Oil consumption goes up when armies march these days.

” told you… let a liberal talk long enough, and sooner or later… he’s going to step on his dick.”

Stoned? No, but you can tell me who would stop the USA if those in charge decided to go “protect” that source of petroleum. The UN? Canada itself? The UK? The EU?

“Enter left-wing crazy…”

Humm do you often give your technical expressions of psychoanalysis based upon others writings you disagree with very often? You must be popular with the debate team nor is it smart. Not conducive to dialog.

“It does not exist nor will it ever exist. “

Is this supernatural certainty at work? That such people exist, that they could even relieve some misery despite any gov’t interference or any brigands who have other priorities than human life? Just curious.

I am not talking about nation building so you are the one needing to reread a bit more closely and slowly what I have written. I am talking about protecting human life, that is all. So far it is just an idea, humanity may not be developed enough for that kind of altruism. Such combination of abilities just may not exist in anyone. You are sure of it. (Would you want such people to exist? Ones not affected by greed or want of power or lack of interest in others lives.)

Once we get off of oil, and off of the imperial war kick we might have a chance of saving some of us from the approaching climate catastrophe. It is already in effect and it can only get worse.

I don’t fish for ideas… I prefer to form them.

Well then get forming, all I see is criticism of me. Your offer of, knives and insults to slice. Fine I laid it out as a proposition. You’re so blinded by your own narrow view of the world you are not much different from the NeoCons you say you are against. Hard to be against them an yet think the way they do from Iraq onward. I’m for total with drawl from all our over 878 bases world wide. Cut our national security budget by 90% to start. What about you? No ideas from you yet. I wait to here your ideas.

You were too busy reading your own points to see mine. I am not for invading anyone. If there was such a group of armed altruists they would be going to help people, arm and train them, not dominate them by any means. Once they are done on to the next village, hopefully before it is struck. So far all it is is a pipe dream. Humanity may not be evolved to act in such a way. But it would be something positive and not for wealth & power which is bringing humanity to its downfall.

My analyst said almost the same thing, except she did not call it a special obsession only for Truthdig 3. she said it is much more inclusive than that, and called it a phobia not an obsession of Imbeciles! Just so happens from my point of vew, Imbicles seem to be spearheaded by Truthdig 3 though with lots of company. Now I also once had a phobia of toilets, hence the reason I became a plumber and worked my way up from urinals.

Speaking of urinals Truthdig 3, my collection of urinals from around the world may be an obsession, in-fact I never leave home without one!

It seems that you have an obsession with that guy Truthdig 3. I am baffled, it looks that Truthdig 3 is occupying part of your small and narrow mind.
Why such CONSTANT preoccupation with Truthdig 3? Did he hit you very close to home and the truth hurts?! Was it that painful? Well, it has been a while and any NORMAL person, by now, would have put the matter to rest and moved on. Something is REALLY wrong! Did you consider professional help? You need help man, and you need it fast?

”But it would be something better than the greedy gov’ts and mercenaries doing for money and power.“

Bwahahahha! Bwahahahha!

You don’t even know what all the conflict is about, do you? Conflict? As in conflict diamonds! Wealth! Minerals! Resources! It’s all about power and wealth! It always is!

There were more than 20 groups fighting in what is known as the Congo Wars. And now you want to send in another one! As if the waters are murky enough.

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

” There is no perfect solution, but shouldn’t one be tried? Or better another way but how? Is there no better solution than allowing what is going on right now? There may be no solution.“

Please reread all of your commentary and explain to me how it is that you’re okay with nation building in Africa but not in Iraq—and whether you realize it or not, that is exactly what you’re talking about here… nation building.

I told you… let a liberal talk long enough, and sooner or later… he’s going to step on his dick.

You guys and the neo-cons are just two sides of the same coin. You don’t mind warfare. Your problem is that each of you want it exercised on your specific anointed visions. Visions that allow you to feel all warm and fuzzy about… you!

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

” What do you have or were you just fishing for ideas?“

I don’t fish for ideas… I prefer to form them.

”People the world over sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” –George Orwell

”I wouldn’t expect to teach the traumatized. But there are plenty of men and women who could learn. But they can learn. These would be done by militarily trained people who would do it for no other reason than to right wrongs. “

Ahhhhhhh…. Sweet virgin in the tree trunk! Face to palm.

The “Dogs of War” is a movie. It’s a movie that has little to do with reality.

Are you there donating all of your ability to helping those people or are you here earning a living (surviving) by selling your abilities on the open market? So if you’re not there donating all of your time, why would you expect others to be able to donate all of their time and skills?

I bet that you never saw yourself as someone who has much in common with Bush jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Le Deen, Perle, and the most of the rest of the ruling elite, did you? Yeah… you’re one of them. You, like all of them, have a vision. You have what Sowell calls the vision of the Anointed. There’s nothing wrong with a vision but the common thread that all of you have is that you want someone else to pay the price of achieving your vision while you sit on your ass receiving the accolades for having had the vision.

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

”Such a group would have many problems the least of which whatever gov’t is letting the atrocities go forward.“

Is the government “letting” the atrocities happen or is the government powerless or limited in its ability to stop the atrocities?

Have you ever been there? I have. Have you seen or know what type of terrain that fighting is taking place in? Have you any idea the amount of square miles that have to be covered? (<- .9 million) The U.S. can barely cover the Green Zone, much less the entirety of Iraq. (only .16 million sq. mi.!) And you expect a poor, backwater, frail, government like that of the government of the DRC to be able to cover all that territory, fighting an unknown number of battle-hardened guerilla groups, protect every citizen scattered for hundreds of thousands of square miles in every little 2-bit village and hut, while guarding resources, and protecting the government from insurgent attacks in its major cities?

Have you even thought about the logistics involved? Only 4.3% of the land has water. It’s estimated that 5.4 million have died and most of them by starvation and disease. Fighters aren’t immune to disease and starvation and thirst. Stallone does all that cool Rambo shit on movie locations where union workers have buffets. “Survivors” is not real reality.

”Nothing was invented, the bombing campaign, and the murderous nature of the previous regime in Cambodia helped the Khemer grow like never before.“

Ho Chi Minh trail (Truong Son Strategic Supply Route)

The bombing was a campaign to save American (<- that’s us.) and S. Vietnamese lives. The North was resupplying through Laos & Cambodia.

You are making the assumption that had there been no bombing that the Khmer Rouge would not have overthrown the autocratic government of Cambodia. Not only is there no way to prove that, you conveniently forget for the moment that the reason the U.S. government intervened in Viet Nam was for “genuine” fears of communist advancements throughout Southeast Asia.

Stop inventing crap! America is not responsible for a communist regime purging its own population. Pol Pot followed the examples set by Mao and Stalin. Those people died because of fanatical idealism!

The only way the West can be seen as culpable in any fashion, is for its policy of non-intervention!

What are you going to do if your Congolese enemies are being resupplied through Angola? Are you just going to sit on your ass and allow them to continue to be supplied so that they can maintain their campaign of terror or are you going to cut off the supply line in Angola? Jeebus on a fucking Ritz cracker dude! War is not pretty!

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

” Some possible real reasons the USA went to attack and later occupy Iraq (1990-2010?); “

Enter left-wing crazy…

First you insinuated that you knew the “real” reasons. Now you’re giving me “possible real” reasons. Hell NG… I have a notebook full of “possible real reasons” we went into Iraq. With that notebook and a couple of dollars I can buy an espresso at Starbuck’s.

You have a convenient anti-American memory. “We” in 1990 was a truly allied effort to turn back Iraqi aggression against another one of its neighbors whose royal family the Daddy Bush family owes a great deal of gratitude for all that living space in its hip pocket.

”They want to control one of the largest and most strategic oil reserves, and locations in that region of the world.“

Everyone in the world wants control of those reserves. They’re strategic to the entire world economy. The world’s economy—not just that of the U.S.—is lubricated with carbon based fuels, and the most efficient carbon based fuel is crude.

What are you going to do when Wal Mart runs out of 25 lbs single packs of Doritos and imitation cheese dips and all those 3-5 X sized Americans start looking at you like their next meal?

”Yeah, you taught me that people will do anything for a potato.” - Jim (Christian Bale), “Empire of the Sun”

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

”The second largest is in Canada which the USA can take anytime it wants.“

Are you typing this shit stoned?

”Ideology deludes, inspires dishonesty, and breeds fanaticism, Facts, experience, and logic are much better at leading you to truth.” -Daniel J. Flynn, “Intellectual Morons”

I want you to think about something. When I was in college I had to take a few Petroleum related classes. At the time we were being taught that the deepest we could expect to find oil was about 17,000 feet. To what depth was the Deepwater Horizon drilling and finding oil?

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

”Only the stupid or bull headed don’t learn from their mistakes.“

”Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.” - Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

”Too bad that the ones doing this to Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan etc want it this way. To them it isn’t a mistake.“

By “ones” you mean the Wahhabis insurgents, rebels, etc. trying to overthrow their governments and Islamic theocrats/autocrats oppressing their subjects on a level that makes Medieval Catholic Popes’ mouths water, right?

”We must leave there, of course it will collapse as it must, no amount of time will cure that. Staying doesn’t improve things.“

That’s not necessarily true. The allegory is a good one and works as long as you don’t consider Germany, Japan, and S. Korea. What will prevent improvement is the internecine violence and hatred between the 3 major factions; the Sunni, the Shía, and the Kurds. That internecine hatred and violence is, as I’ve said many times before, why we shouldn’t have gone in and was one of the major reasons I was against U.S. intervention in Iraq. There’s a reason Iraq has been ruled with such violent oppression throughout all of its brief history.

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

”That is why the USA is now moving on. “

Yeah? And where do you see the USA moving to? All I see is a reduction in troop levels and a political re-designation of units. Telling the public that a combat unit is no longer a combat unit does not make the unit non-combatant. It provides the administration with fodder and talking points to feed the idiot base and keep the media talking heads occupied.

By Night-Gaunt, September 4 at 8:31 pm

”The Iraqis are their own proxies there for the USA.“

Ah… gee Zeus! Now you’re just spouting the Stupid. You were doing so well.

Iraq is located geographically, on traditional Arab (Sunni) land. Since the treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin (1639) the border between Iraq and Iran has been the demarcation line between the Arabs and Persians. This Bush plunder has handed over to the Iranians (Persians) control of traditional Sunni land. (Shía majority, Sunni minority) You understand Sunni right? Yemen, Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait, etc. …our allies… or if you prefer… approximately 90% of the Muslim world!

Then there’s the 3rd element that causes grave political concern… the Kurds! With the Kurds we have another ally and NATO member, Turkey, involved in the situation. Many, if not most of the Kurds (also our allies) consider themselves an independent state. This makes Turkey very wary because of their Kurd population on territory that both, the Kurds and the Turks, see as theirs.

“Florida Church’s Planned Quran Burning Sparks Protests In Indonesia.” Headlines of an article in the Huffingtonpost.

It was also obscurely reported, a suspected crazy lady wearing a Burka hefting a large sign which had the words placed in an seemingly unbalanced manner, stitched in sequins with very bright colors, on which the sign said;..... “Burn in Hell you New Atheists you!”, the lady stated it was her intention to get two stones from one roast, so she intended to roast some of those disgusting schmoos using a copy of “Hitchens blasphemous Book ......“God is not Great”! The article did not give her name or any other information,.... except it mentioned that she apparently ran out of matches!

Speaking of “Li’l Abner” I have been compared, unknowingly, to this guy;

Joe Btfsplk: World’s most loving friend and worst jinx who always travels with a dark cloud over his head.

Also I have been told of having the Goth vibe, though I dress normally. I suppose if it is termed in the way of Edgar Allen Poe‘s melancholy then I would agree. However I don’t consider myself sad or depressed. More along the lines of dark fantasists like H.P.Lovecraft, Gahan Wilson & Charles Addams I fit comfortably in. I like H.R.Geiger too. Little “Lio” in the comic strips, is my kind of kid. Just the way I am.

I was never convinced that Hitler was an Atheist, even by default. It wouldn’t be the first time that a translator with ulterior motives misrepresented anther for their own purposes. (Either for or against.) The same was done to Nietzsche both by his sister (Elisabeth who was a proto-Nazi) and those translators who were just Nazi hacks without intellectual integrity. But then Nietzsche is worse than unknown, he is poorly known. He is easy to be misunderstood because he didn’t write in clear unambiguous prose. He was an artist who experimented with all kinds of ways to express himself.

Speaking of mortality, I wounder if Hitchens has any regrets being for the forced demise of so many in Iraq as he was for that illegal imperial action that killed millions? Maybe morality should also be considered by him in his self ruminations.

Shenonymous, sometimes I write more slowly than I think and some things get left out. The inward perception of ones self rarely is done, but I am one of those lucky ones who has an innate impetus to do so. Even so just like with proofreading, you need someone’s else input to get a better view of things. A fresh eye on it. We see things but not all of it is processed as perception and recorded as memory. (We have many filters starting with our perceptive equipment.) We can have blinders on depending on when we leave our social miliuex for another. Ex. In one such place sexism against women is common & uncontested, then said person goes to a place where it is uncommon and such violaters are called down on it & is shocked and confused. Does this help clarify my previous point?

Food for thought, or Shmoozings for thought”Judgement is the cornerstone of Intellect” – PH Sept 4 at
8:20 pm

Poor or good, judgment is not the cornerstone of intellect, it has
to do with wisdom. However, wisdom like truth and morals, at the
human experiential level, are relative and subject to results and is
wholly dependent upon what the actor, or agent, sees those results
as being the actual case. It is only when theoretically elevated to the
abstract universal level that poor or good judgment attains to wisdom
and then good judgment always accompanies wisdom. So there poor
judgment does not reside at all.

Now the opposite of the abstract wisdom is abstract folly. And if one
wants to say that folly walks skates along with poor judgment,
abstractly speaking, there cannot be any argument. But since at the
human experience level, it is a matter of perspective and hence relative,
one woman’s/man’s poor judgment is another’s good. One is
considered wise by one or more while another would consider the same
woman/man a fool. Now wisdom and foolishness are affected by
lifelong teachings and learnings and since all are not equally taught nor
learned, it is moot to accuse another of being foolish or wise unless it
can be shown he/she with certainty is. I also understand foolishness
can be calibrated by the size of a shovel that is needed to weigh the
amount of proven crap can be shown to exist. Using a thimble or a
wheelbarrow as the range of content, the proof is in the pudding, uh…
crap.————-
Good morning Sir Leefeller. Some of the Shmoo legend does involve
religion and being poisoned by it.

According to Shmoo legend, the lovable creature laid eggs, gave milk
and died of sheer esctasy when looked at with hunger. The Shmoo
loved to be eaten and tasted like any food desired. Anything that
delighted people delighted a Shmoo. … The Shmoo believed that the
only way to happiness was to bring happiness to others… ventured into
the forbidden Valley of the Shmoon, against the frantic protestations of
Ol’ Man Mose. (Now we know that Ol’ Man Mose means Old Moses of
the 10 Commandment Tabernacale Fame) and we know how those first
four poisoned the world (hopefully not out of extinction, which I
suspect the Shmoos would not let happen, mainly because their
imperative is to not let it happen). But we have to admit they are
subversive to the commandments. For we would love them more than
any god. They are the real ditties.

Shmoo fact: Ironically, “the lovable and selfless Shmoos ultimately
brought misery to humankind because people with a limitless supply of
self-sacrificing Shmoos stopped working and society broke down. Seen
at first as a boon to humankind, they were ultimately hunted down and
exterminated to preserve the status quo.” As noted at the Capp
Enterprises website.

Given that merchandising Shmoo relics and artifacts, sort of like
Byzantine Icons, that True Shmoo Believers (the TSBs) decorated their
houses, cars, and dormatories with in order to worship at their Shmoo
Saltars, original Shmoo Stuff is now worth a fortune. However, the
movement has gone underground and surreptitiously continues to
affect the economy.

Hi She, the story did not provide the Htichens version of the Schmoo story, where Hitchens proposes “religion poisoned the Shmoos”!

Occasionally I have observed small glimmers of humor from Patrick Henrys posts, which must have been missed by Truthdig 3, or we would have had more proclamations of Truthdig 3s strange relationship towards clowns.

The Schmoo story must be absolute truth,..... because as elisalouisa would say, all one hast to do is,......Google it!

Many posts on this thread have been written by yours truly and I have also provided linkks and shared excerpts from various authors that I found interesting . I doubt Malcontent that you have read through these pages or the links provided. The knowledge is there for you to grasp. It has crossed my mind that your intention might not be to acquire knowledge but rather a put down of sorts. I have put this thought out of my mind. Again, your sole contribution to this thread, “Hitchens was a Imperialist Englishman.” Thank you very much.
Suggestion: Again, try not to live up to your name. Ciao.

”Organized religions have good and bad points, they give charity,
unity and comfort but they also are the mob.
I tend shy away from that hypocrisy, the only steaks which burn on
my grill are done by the heretics.”

So you would burn heretics, on your grill no less, eh PatrickHenry?
Would you revive the Inquisition? That kind of Christianity is anathema
and testifies to the ugliness that religions engender.

Ever wonder if anyone besides the Buddha ever reached Nirvana? Isn’t
that a little bit like verifying the Christ’s Transfiguration? What would it
mean anyway to be in the center of bliss? I think the Existentialists
rightfully understood… nothingness.

You seem to agree with me Night-Gaunt that it is difficult for those
whose hubris is so full that they are unable to see their own personal
defects, in this particular case, sexism. You may be right, but it is
fuzzy what you mean by seeing beyond perception. Do you really
remind yourself constantly? And how successful are you at searching
your psyche for hidden personal defects?

What part of their psychopathology did atheism cause in Bormann and
Hitler? What is the evidence? The evidence does not support that Hitler
had given up his Christian beliefs as he died a confirmed Catholic in
good standing with the church.

Anti-Christian quotes attributed to Hitler has been shown to have been
made up by François Genoud, the French translator of the famous Hitler
Table Talks. The German text of the table-talks where he allegedly
made the comment does not include them. Nor did Hitler ever speak
against Jesus or his own brand of Christianity. On the contrary, the
table-talk has Hitler speaking admirably about Jesus. Hitler did, of
course criticize organized religion in a political sense (as do many
Christians today), but never in a religious sense. It has to be a
damaging blow to any apologist argument against Hitler’s Christianity
the fact that nowhere in any known source does Hitler denounce his
Christianity or Jesus. In his memoirs, Albert Speer, Minister of
Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich, recalled Hitler as
saying: “The church is certainly necessary for the people. It is a strong
and conservative element.” Although Hitler approved of destroying
Judaism and other cults, never did he give orders against the Protestant
or Catholic Church. One would legitimately wonder why not?

Martin Bormann, however was another kind of animal. A contemptuous
man who loved and derived power precisely and only from the office he
held as Hitler’s assistant. Recorded evidence shows he did not smoke
or drink, ate with moderation, which in themselves are healthy, but add
to a profile of one who possessed no inclinations of his own, no
interests, no hobbies, a personality not simply a consciously austere
attitude of renunciation, but the puritanism of an impersonality that
was without needs because it knew no needs.

It would not be because of an atheism that found no justification for
belief in a supernatural being, if he was an atheist. It was because he
could not believe in anything except himself, and his Führer Chancellor.
He divided people into two categories: those he could win over and
subordinate to himself and those he had to fear, and he distrusted
everyone. It was his will to power not an ideological opposition, that
made him one of the most extreme opponents of the churches. He was
concerned less with the burdensome ideological competition of
Christianity than with the claims upon people with which the churches
opposed the Third Reich’s bid for total power. Religion was seen as a
purely political enemy.

Persisting with the locked jaw of a pitbull, Sir Leefeller. By my
measure, it is only sexist if you meant it as a slur because she
was female. You decide.

And I am the guilty one and made the wrong appellation of
Frau Ditty Unyun calling her a goddess. Sorry you never made that
prior distinction. Having some supernatural power, I just assumed
she was a god-ddddesss. My bad.

Yeah, I look forward to Chris Hedges articles every week too, I love reading all the same comments every week from his relatives, usually something posted like this ......... “Wow .... Chris, this was your bestist article in the world”..... Mom!,,,,, PS; your laundry is ready and I was able to darn your sock puppets!

You just are too lazy to do your homework Malcontent. It’s easy to continually ask questions, not so easy to read the links and read all five pages of the posts and also all the links, finding your answers. My comments on this thread are winding down, Chris Hedges will be back next week, I look forward to that.
Perhaps I shall meet you on those threads.

Patrick Henry, FYI, Great Unyun is a deity not a female goddess, difference being, the Great Unyun is real and drinks Tequila.

Patrick Henry commenting to Leefeller;
“Judgement is the cornerstone of Intellect leefeller, both things you obviously lack”

Is that Judgment or cornerstones Patrick Henry?
Where did you dig this one up, does it have something to do with a strange fetish for cornerstones?

So, .... are we all invited to the wedding since we know each other so well, make sure elisalouisa spells my name right,.... by the way I used to do wedding photography, only the last time I did a wedding as photographer sort of became unpleasant when the bride got mad at me and she said she thought the photographs made her look so old, I said; “Look lady I am a photographer, not a miracle worker”!

You have a string of interesting posts PatrickHenry and you are right about Hitchens when you say:His support of the Iraq war proved to me no matter how smart others thought Hitchens was, he suffered poor judgement which is the cornerstone of intellect.
Then again, could that be part of Hitchens’ ability to change colors for his own gain, this time in order to be with the intellectual Washington/New York crowd which includes the neocons who were/are pursuing these wars. As to his Trotskyite days, was he a true believer? I would say yes but only Hitchens knows for sure and perhaps even he is somewhat mystified as to his actions at times. Surely, heavy consumption of liquor does take its toll. Some, religious or otherwise take glee in the demise of their enemies. As I have said before,
such a painful and slow death should not be wished on anyone. There are drugs that can ease his pain thus bettering the quality of life. Again, such are my views and opinions which I have reached after reading columns, books and posts on Christopher Hitchens.
Great posts Night-Gaunt, very thought provoking.

Iraq is the latest demonstration of how hubris and stupidity can get you into one hell of a mess with no exit. The scheme has handed Iran its most significant political coup in half a century. We can’t leave! If the U.S. were to pull out, that place would become a living hell—much more than what it is today—within days. We’re stuck.

We must leave there, of course it will collapse as it must, no amount of time will cure that. Staying doesn’t improve things. When you knock the supports out from a building it is going to fall because your being there keeps the owner from replacing them. The supports the US in place has is just for itself. When the occupying country goes, so go those supports. That is why the USA is now moving on. The four mega-bases and “Fortress America” embassy are as a garrison for their tame state. The Iraqis are their own proxies there for the USA. They want to control one of the largest and most strategic oil reserves, and locations in that region of the world. The second largest is in Canada which the USA can take anytime it wants.

Only the stupid or bull headed don’t learn from their mistakes. Too bad that the ones doing this to Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan etc want it this way. To them it isn’t a mistake. I was not advocating going back in time to every error. What good is it if it is ignored by the PTB?

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were a communist movement that overthrew the autocratic government of Cambodia. The U.S. was three years out of the area when he came to power. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge did exactly what all good commie regimes do… start cleansing the population. We have enough real blame to put on the U.S. without you inventing bullshit.

Nothing was invented, the bombing campaign, and the murderous nature of the previous regime in Cambodia helped the Khemer grow like never before. All true as is the fact that the Khemer were just worse. So the USA left, the effects of the bombing were still there physically and traumatically. Maybe you need to reassess what you think you know about history.

Some possible real reasons the USA went to attack and later occupy Iraq (1990-2010?);

Oil, location, military projection points into other areas of the reason, staying with the dollar instead of moving to the Euro, the second anchor (Israel is the first) and the fact that both presidents GHW & GW Bush didn’t like Saddam Hussein (for whatever reason.)

I wouldn’t expect to teach the traumatized. But there are plenty of men and women who could learn. Yes I have not killed anyone or been involved in a fire fight. But they can learn. These would be done by militarily trained people who would do it for no other reason than to right wrongs. This hypothetical group wouldn’t care if the host gov’t were against them because they would be dedicated to defending, and training others to defend human life. Such a group would have many problems the least of which whatever gov’t is letting the atrocities go forward. Such a group may never exist or can do so. But it would be something better than the greedy gov’ts and mercenaries doing for money and power. Of course those who learn to defend and become comfortable or even immured may take up vigilante killing to avenge past wrongs. There is no perfect solution, but shouldn’t one be tried? Or better another way but how? Is there no better solution than allowing what is going on right now? There may be no solution.

If you reach Nirvana you are off the Wheel of Incarnations and are in the center of bliss, your trials as a faulty human are over. Though enlightenment is its own reward.

Shenonymous I don’t count myself out of having some personal defect somewhere in my psyche that I am as yet unaware. It is easy to have them if you are surrounded by it and it is considered normal and no one calls me out on it.[Why I brought up VPBiden‘s faux pau with Obama early on. He was perfectly blind to the fact he made a racist comment. Those are the most insidious. Both Sir Doyle & Goethe spoke about (in their own ways) the difficulty sometimes of seeing something right in front of your face. Seeing isn’t always perceiving as I remind myself constantly.

Also as an odd side bar, Martin Bormann was the only prominent Nazi who was also a professed Atheist. He wrote a controversial book called “Table Talk”* where he claims through unsubstantiated records that Hitler was a secret Atheist. Bormann was the private secretary and controlled access to the Fuhrer making him very powerful. Some say he was the “secret leader” during the war. It is possible to be one and still be a Nazi but most of the mystical-theocratic elements that make it so attractive go away. Even the Stalinists put worship of state and the state leaders into a mystical category not unlike the Czars they succeeded.

___
*It is used as a reason to call the Nazi movement an Atheist one. No independent substantiation of it though that I am aware at this time.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”Goethe

Grazie, Leefeller. You are an enlightened one. Amazing. The Great
Unyun whispered in my ear. “You might just be the only male ever on
TD to be knighted! Sir Leefeller is how I will address you from now on!
I’ll raise a beer tonight to you for that. Whaddaguy.

Patrick Henry’s poor judgments the cornerstones of intellect? (PH, can I keep this?)

“Science as we currently know it has evolved and changed its ‘laws’ and theories too often over the last half century for me to give in to the lastest established scientific acumen.”

So Patrick Henry, which scientific acumen do you give into? Black and white does not seem logic to me but simplistic way to organize thoughtlessness?

Yes the cult of science changes when a new premise pops up and annoys the hell out of me too! Give me the 3000 year old cult of religion anytime, no changes there, except for the time being, no burning of heretics at the steak,.... not yet anyway.

“Hitchens may be recognized by some as an intellectual, a wordsmith in adjectives and verbs, but to others he is a unaccomplished hack who has a groupie following of nonconformists, i.e. the ‘New Atheists’”.

Geeze Patrick Henry, if you keep this dogmatic crap up, you may get lucky! This means the opposite is a Groupie following of conformists Old Religionists I suppose?

“His support of the Iraq war proved to me no matter how smart others thought Hitchens was, he suffered poor judgement which is the cornerstone of intellect.”

Yes Patrick Henry, I sounds as if you are very well endowed in the cornerstone of intellect! Seems to me intellect requires to be in agreement according to Patrick Henry definition?.... See Patrick Henry, I do not agree with Hitchens opinion on Iraq nor some of his other opinions, but I find Hitchens very articulate and enjoy reading his works, though not always needing to be in agreement. Suppose Hitchens may be intelligent too, exceeding more intelligent and knowledgeable than I on many issues, wonder where this places the cornerstone of intellect Patrick Henry?

She, I do not smart from lessons learned, unlike some others here who seem to subsist on constantly smarting, but never seem to learn anything. In my case I learned my lessen, sans smarting, which may indicate a slight chance of being slightly smarter?

Leefeller! You are still smarting from being shown how sexist you
“were?” You said you learned yo’lesson. Or maybe you are still
carrying on that male occultism called Pampered Pouting as you keep
on whining about it. And it wasn’t a handbasket since nemesis2010
wiped me out of my supply (and I must say he did a fantastic job of
handing some their derrieres each in one).

No, dear heart, you rode yourself by yourself all the way to that sexist
abode of condemned souls and devils on a skateboard I just happened
to have handy. And you are getting a lot of mileage out of that
mortification moment. It surprised you didn’t it. You never suspected
you were sexist. Lots of laughs. Most guys never even have a twinge
of suspicion about themselves. But… your charges were dismissed by
the Great Unyun and you were let off the hook. But maybe because the
Great Unyun is a female goddess type, you were too rattled to admit a
female saved yo’ass, uh…er…yo’arse, yo’ex-Marine arse? Well…
whatever.

Now on to religion! Yipppiieee do and morality!

So glad it was brought up. I, being polite would never have brought it
up. PH must not have meant She he was referring to as a cougar, since
I am a barracuda. Just keeping the metaphors straight. Barracudas can
negotiate stiletto heels better than cougars.

So, let’s see, where were we regarding religion? Mannnn about
morality, right! OH…No. Mortality. Must not forget that T.

But first something needs clarified. How is Hitchens a neocon? What is
an atheist/neocon? I only ask since I am atheist but I’ve never been
called a neocon? Is that short for atheist/neo-conservative? I think
that is an oxymoron. The two words are antithetical to each other.
The New Conservatives? And if you say New Atheist New Conservative
that is pretty bizarre. Who are the supposed intellectuals? Since there
are none in the Republican party, I don’t know who is being talked
about. What does this have to do with religion? Which religion? Since
there are all kinds of atheists, what about the atheist/neo-liberals, the
new atheist/neolibs? Do they get a freepass? How about centrist
atheists? Are there any Neo-Centrist Atheists? Yup…me. I’m very neo
modern in my atheism.

Well I did google Hitchens and neocon and a lot of shit came up. Oops,
I meant excrement by some minor minds who troll the net. He gets a
lot of accusations with blathering words that don’t mean crap.
Therefore all such statements about him are absurd.

What is so pathetic is that so-called Christians who allegedly believe in
a just and caring God make the most vicious and hideous remarks
about Hitchens’ disease and their pleasure when he dies. Is that the
way they are going to get into their heaven? Hmmm. Not much
different than jihadists. By the way, are there two different heavens?
The Islamist and the Christian? For Jews existence of the afterlife is not
stated explicitly in the Torah itself, because as human beings we have
to focus on our tasks in this world. Hindus do not have a heaven.
Buddhists do not believe in a personal God or a divine being, hence no
heaven. Believing in a heaven seems to be a zero-zum gaze. Yeah I
know, I know (zero-sum game. But I like zero-zum gaze better)

Hollywood hasn’t figured out to simulate the various battlefield smells of fear, shit, piss, cordite and what you ate last night nor have they figured out how to simulate that old overpressure feeling.

This makes me wonder… are you one of those that believe in gun control?

Am finding the exchange of ideas and comments from both Nemesis and Night Gaunt most enlightening.

Very seldom do I proclaim knowing reasons for many things with an absolutist vent, this is why I ask questions instead of make proclamations; for instance why do some humans seem such stupid imbeciles (redundant?) and others seem so smarty pants intelligent. Is it Yin and Yang? Let me make it very clear I am not referring to Night Gaunt or Nemesis in the above comment in any way, unlike some I do not enjoy receiving my arse in a handbasket, a lesson learned from the Shester over my sexist comments.

It always seemed to me Vietnam was a questionable war, Nemesis honed in and explained very well with the proxy sides comment, though I still believe if I had it to do over and been much smarter back then, I wold have moved to Canada!.... Such is hindsight!

Belief in God, like art, politics and religion, mean different things to everyone. Just as each one of us is unique, I believe so are the opinions of something as enigmatic as God.

Science as we currently know it has evolved and changed its ‘laws’ and theories too often over the last half century for me to give in to the lastest established scientific acumen.

Hitchens may be recognized by some as an intellectual, a wordsmith in adjectives and verbs, but to others he is a unaccomplished hack who has a groupie following of nonconformists, i.e. the ‘New Atheists’.

His support of the Iraq war proved to me no matter how smart others thought Hitchens was, he suffered poor judgement which is the cornerstone of intellect.

”How about going to the Congo and training the women how to fight and use the AK-47s and let them go to take care of their rapists. (Let women do it so they can feel comfortable with them.) It may be the only way to stem this horror. Some of the worst of humanity at work. Any ideas Nemesis2010?”

Geezeus! Ay! Ay! Ay!

Besides the fact that the DNC government won’t allow you to enter into the country with a knife much less massive amounts of weaponry, what makes you think that you can train enough traumatized, abused, and frightened women well enough to defend themselves against trained and bloodied guerilla fighters? Have you any idea how many recruits don’t make it through boot camp? Ask Patrick and Leefellar.

Have you ever been shot at? Have you any idea what a fire-fight is like? Do you know what to do in an ambush or how to set one up? What do you know about booby traps (IEDs today) and setting up a perimeter?

You’re talking about those women defending themselves so you have to teach them to shoot but also how set up a perimeter, scout the area and set up ambushes. You also have to teach them how to fight through an ambush. You cannot sit in a village all day waiting for an attack so what happens if they’re ambushed while going to the water well or to the river to wash clothes? Like these:

” So you support my point after all that it takes a great deal of work to get people to become killers, or supporters of killers then? Such sheltering isn’t easy and it aids greatly, along with the other web of lies that gets us into war after war after war. Those promoting such wars get rewarded handsomely. We get the blood soaked bill.”

In no way! You’d be surprised how fast you’d kill another human being. I take all this altruistic, feel-good talk from Americans with a grain of salt that weighs more than the goddess Lamushtu. It’s easy to be a warrior in the army of the Anointed when you sit in an air conditioned environment, with full bellies, and more comforts enjoyed by the poor than that ever enjoyed by kings and royalty.

There is no such thing as a war without war profiteers and where the public doesn’t get stuck with the bill. Do you think going into the Congo would be any different?

Night-Gaunt, September 3 at 5:56 pm

”Any war crimes are swept away and nothing happens because both official parties are run by the same kinds of people.”

Night-Gaunt, to the victor goes the spoils. Victors conduct war crimes trials. Go ask Saddam if there aren’t any war crimes trials. What you want are treason charges against those complicit in whatever conspiracy there may or may not have been.

Personally, I don’t know the “real reasons” the U.S. went into Iraq. I hope to find out after your post responding to this one.

Night-Gaunt, September 3 at 5:56 pm

” The paper tiger of the UN does nothing, not even tokenism because the US is so powerful. Bribes and threats work in the criminal under world and in international relations. Only no criminal had access to the kinds of weapons and man power they do through the US military.”

Wow! You were doing fairly well until you decided to jump off the high dive board into a pool without water. I’m not one of those who blame America for all of the world’s ills Night-Gaunt and you, as well as those like minded, should be ashamed of yourselves.

There are several powers that have veto power in the U.N. All of those powers have—at diverse times—used those veto powers when it suited them politically. You—as most—view the U.N. as something that it simply isn’t. The U.N. is not a planetary government. The U.N is simply a political vehicle through which member nations can have a voice in world political affairs. It is also a means of conflict resolution in order to avoid wars. Be careful what you wish for.

There is no such thing as a government, corporate entity, nation, society, peoples, etc. where there aren’t bribes or a criminal underworld. Utopia is a book! Dystopia is reality.

”As for Cambodia you leave out the secret bombing campaigns there and Laos that forced people to the Khemer Rouge in the first place, funneled weapons to it and it took a united Communist Viet Nam to put an end to it. (One created from all the manipulations by the USA going back some time, and the USA refusing, twice, to acknowledge the Vietnamese people’s independence after the two world wars where our gov’t sided with the French colonial empire both times. Ironic isn’t it?)”

I must apologize Night-Gaunt I didn’t know I was dealing with a rehistorian. The Viet Nam war was the U.S.A. and its proxy agent, S. Viet Nam, fighting the U.S.S.R. and its proxy agent, N. Viet Nam. All those weapons of which you speak were supplied by the U.S.S.R. and Maoist China.

The reason we were there was a genuine fear of communist advancements in Asia. The concerns were real, the reasons for going in were fabricated; the Gulf of Tonkin. Throughout the cold war the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. fought each other through proxy agents. Whenever either one intervened personally it got its nose bloodied; i.e. Viet Nam and Afghanistan.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were a communist movement that overthrew the autocratic government of Cambodia. The U.S. was three years out of the area when he came to power. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge did exactly what all good commie regimes do… start cleansing the population. We have enough real blame to put on the U.S. without you inventing bullshit.

Night-Gaunt, September 3 at 5:56 pm

”I dare say protecting people from being rape and pillaging is far better than the usual real reasons the USA invades and occupies countries. Or not?”

Well, if you feel that way you should take comfort in Bush War II because the official government rapists employed by Saddam are out of a job and at least there won’t be chemical attacks on the Kurds.

Would you mind telling me what are the “real reasons” we went into Iraq? You’re not the first one I have heard say that yet every time I ask them to tell me what the real reasons were they haul ass. So please… enlighten me… What are the real reasons we invaded Iraq? And please be precise.

”But would it be invasion if you just go to those villages and towns and protect them? Would you try? If so how? Would it be okay if NGOs do it? Our gov’t to have hands off policies and let us if we want to go help them? Or just do nothing?”

Did you bother to read the article that I linked to? What are one of their compliants?

The U.N. already has a presence. What the hell kind of NGO would you send there? Blackwater?

Do you think that the DNC government—or any other government—will simply allow you and your cohorts to march in with all the weapons and supplies that you’ll need and start shooting up the place? Don’t you think they might be paranoid enough without another paramilitary group to threaten their stability?

Our government has a hands-off policy now, wasn’t that what you expressed some dismay about in your previous comments?

I don’t have the answers Night-Gaunt. I’ve been struggling with the same paradoxes that you and others have. I just don’t know. The reason I made comparisons and mentions of results with respect to the Koreas, Ethiopia, and Cambodia was to demonstrate that whatever option one takes there are no guarantees what will result. It’s “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men.”

Iraq is the latest demonstration of how hubris and stupidity can get you into one hell of a mess with no exit. The scheme has handed Iran its most significant political coup in half a century. We can’t leave! If the U.S. were to pull out, that place would become a living hell—much more than what it is today—within days. We’re stuck.

Night-Gaunt, September 3 at 5:56 pm

” We shouldn’t have gone in is the question you won’t posit.”

I don’t need to posit it. If we start going back and try to right every wrong or every mistake we’ll soon be 200,000 years in the past when modern man first walked the earth.

”For S. Korea they were under US sponsored right wing dictatorship up until the 1990’s so they were better off by that narrow measure.”

As I said many times before, I don’t buy the Left vs. Right politics. If I accept what you’re saying here and consider that the U.S.S.R., Maoist China, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Ethiopia, etc. were all left wing dictatorships while S. Korea was right then better for everyone to be under right wing dictatorships than left wing ones.

What S. Korea had that the North, and Cambodia lacked is a stabilizing force that enabled it to evolve into what ever type of social democratic society it is today.

Night-Gaunt, September 3 at 5:56 pm

”NO. It would be impossible to help N. Korea as long as the dictator has nukes and China behind them & you know it which is why you chose that particular case.”

No, that’s not why I chose them. I chose Korea because it, like Viet Nam, is a homogenous people. The Koreas and Viet Nam serve as excellent examples because both have similar situations. Both modern versions of the two countries are results of post WWII politics and both have U.S.S.R., Chinese, and U.S.A. influences that have played a large part in what they have become.

”Rwanda, Congo there are other means to help other than invasion but how would you do it?”

I never suggested that we do anything. You’re the one who said that you feel something ought to be done. I’m just listening to what you propose and intend to consider it and perhaps point out issues that you may not have considered.

I find this interesting because I’ve seen on quite a few occasions where elements in the U.S. who consider themselves liberal, progressive or left leaning and anti-war will—if one waits long enough—admit to a cause that they believe warrants war or some kind of police action –which is just another name for non-conventional war.

“Many religious beliefs involve entities or ideas that currently are not within the domain of science. Thus, it would be false to assume that all religious beliefs can be challenged by scientific findings.”

If one does not believe in the existence of an entity such as Wowwe, god, the sand man, tooth fary, the Easter Bunny and one that bothered me until just a couple of years ago Santa Claus, why should science or anyone else in their right mind for that matter, spend any time trying to prove or challenge to anyone who blindly believes in entities that said entities even remotely exist or not?

Well, unless unbelievers are forced while being labeled Heretics, Infidels, heathens, pagans or some other labeling name, such as “New Atheist”, find themselves threatened or tortured by those who believe following their cult of religion, why would the cult of science (cult used to bring science down to religions moronic levels) even want to feel the need to disprove something when the existence of it does not exist in their mind?

This has always been the problem, it is the believers who cannot prove anything except what they osmosis-ed in their lives probably by association to hope and follow blind faith as the only way to explain the unexplainable.

Apparently to me, taking advantage of ignorance the world over is what religion does so very well. Hitchens over stated comment (I beleive for effect) “Religion Poisons Everything” may be closer to truth in my mind, than when I first read it. Reading the flaying flapping arguments attacking Hitchens and his comments apparently support them more then not.

As I asked before why cannot the religious keep it to themselves? She and others answered the question, but a special thanks to elisalouisa; it seems very apparent to me, people living under a church of cards find an insecurity of life supported by very shaky and loose foundations, requires constant reassurance, something desperately needed by many people.

Malcontent: So, who are these atheist/neocons again?
Your post 9/3 at 10:13 pm
“Hitchens, was an imperialist Englishman, who in spite of his apparent perpetual inebriation, still has a clearer view of this world than you. Who are these other ‘new athiests’ who share so much in common with neocons?”
This thread is about Hitchens, although straying off that subject is not unknown. Hitchens is a sell out to the neocons. Neocon Jeff Goldberg interviewed Hitchens. We are mainly talking about Hitchens. Hitchens is the new atheist/neocon. I notice that you Malcontent, like some others who question, rarely add to this thread. Your major contribution being that “Hitchens was an imperialist Englishman.”Dare I say that Hitchens has come a long way since then. One can surmise that when you contributed this gem you did not feel he fit into the neocon group. of. My comment you must be referring to is new atheist/neocons. Again, it’s about Hitchens.

In my last post I misspoke, referring to intellectuals; what I meant to say was supposed intellectuals.Your posts indicate that you do not find merit in my writings. Do us both a favor and buzz off.

I asked,“Who are these other ‘newathiests’ who share so much in common with neocons?”. You respond with a whole post about Hitchens and another with the NAS’s official “We don’t scorn you, just keep the funding coming”, B.S.

“supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science.”
Nor can they even be proven to exist.

Malcontent:
Excerpt from: The New War Between Science and Religion
by Mano Singham
In a 2008 publication titled Science, Evolution, and Creationism, the NAS stated:
“Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. ... Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist. ... Many religious beliefs involve entities or ideas that currently are not within the domain of science. Thus, it would be false to assume that all religious beliefs can be challenged by scientific findings.”Those of us who disagree—sometimes called “new atheists”—point out that historically, the scope of science has always expanded, steadily replacing supernatural explanations with scientific ones. Science will continue this inexorable march, making it highly likely that the accommodationists’ strategy will fail. After all, there is no evidence that consciousness and mind arise from anything other than the workings of the physical brain, and so those
phenomena are well within the scope of scientific investigation. What’s more, because the powerful appeal of religion comes precisely from its claims that the deity intervenes in the physical world, in response to prayers and such, religious claims, too, fall well within the domain of science. The only deity that
science can say nothing about is a deity who does nothing at all.

By Malcontent, September 3 at 10:13 pm Link to this comment
By elisalouisa, September 3 at 4:24 pm
“...NewAtheist/neocons…”
WTF?
Lions and tigers and NewAtheists. Oh my!
Do you have any fact based opinions, or do you just make shit up as you go along?Hitchens, was an imperialist Englishman, who in spite of his apparent perpetual inebriation, still has a clearer view of this world than you. Who are these other
‘newathiests’ who share so much in common with neocons?

elisaYou should google words like neocon Hitchens. You might be surprised what you will come up with. I don’t expect you or anyone to agree with me. I have some quotes and links below. So to all you intellectuals whose aim it is to make those not fitting in that category less than human, buzz off. I don’t have to explain how I have come to my conclusions, I have done so out of courtesy, not because you have it coming. If you checked for yourself you might have a little more information.

The Importance of Cole V. Hitchens by Bill Scher
High-profile arguments between pundits, experts or intellectuals can be distracting sideshows. But the online fight between U. of Michigan history professor Juan Cole and neocon writer Christopher Hitchens, over the
accuracy of translated remarks of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is important. And potentially useful in preventing the neocons from successfully re-running the Iraq playbook for Iran.

Making shit up, seems to be a past time for some of the less enlightened morons in the world as well some posters here, for example look at TD3 and company. Not sure if TD3 knows how this works, just because he has a head up his ass opinion about another poster, and makes ludicrous statements or accusations does not mean they are the truth, correct, accurate, just deluded comments from one who seems a solipsist with the deluded idea when he spews something it is absolute truth and everyone should accept it as such, what is amusing in the mind of the solipsist, no other people exists in the world, except themselves. So Truthdig 3 if you are a solipsist only you exist and everyone else is an illusion. To be so absolute is a sure sign of somersaulting lacking mental stability, how about this. So it is TD3 who most recently accused me of being a lier and hating Arabs with a passion and even more importantly of not being funny!

So in return for your stupid accusation I rase your stupid accusation to a much stupider accusation but possibly accurate, the truth and very likely on the money. Truthdig number 3 you a sophistic moron, imbecilic idiot who is really a solipsist, which means I do not exist I never really wrote this!

Do you have any fact based opinions, or do you just make shit up as you go along?

Hitchens, was an imperialist Englishman, who in spite of his apparent perpetual inebriation, still has a clearer view of this world than you. Who are these other ‘newathiests’ who share so much in common with neocons?

What about North Korea? It’s one short of a divine trinity communist totalitarian dictatorship where we know people are starving in huge numbers and suffering unspeakable horrors. Should we invade it?

For S. Korea they were under US sponsored right wing dictatorship up until the 1990’s so they were better off by that narrow measure.

NO. It would be impossible to help N. Korea as long as the dictator has nukes and China behind them & you know it which is why you chose that particular case. Rwanda, Congo there are other means to help other than invasion but how would you do it? But would it be invasion if you just go to those villages and towns and protect them? Would you try? If so how? Would it be okay if NGOs do it? Our gov’t to have hands off policies and let us if we want to go help them? Or just do nothing?

Compare North and South Korea, and then take a look at Viet Nam. Should we have stayed in South Viet Nam? Did we make an even bigger mistake for pulling out? In Ethiopia the aid sent by the West to curtail the mass starvation and genocide helped prolong the suffering. In Cambodia the West maintained a hands-off policy and the result was the same. Almost half the Cambodian population was wiped out.

We shouldn’t have gone in is the question you won’t posit. As for Cambodia you leave out the secret bombing campaigns there and Laos that forced people to the Khemer Rouge in the first place, funneled weapons to it and it took a united Communist Viet Nam to put an end to it. (One created from all the manipulations by the USA going back some time, and the USA refusing, twice, to acknowledge the Vietnamese people’s independence after the two world wars where our gov’t sided with the French colonial empire both times. Ironic isn’t it?)

I dare say protecting people from being rape and pillaging is far better than the usual real reasons the USA invades and occupies countries. Or not?

Our altruistic feelings are one reason the government came up with embedded reporting and prohibitions against filming of all the body bags of our dead. Remember the images splattered all over the evening news during Viet Nam? We live in a very sheltered society here.

So you support my point after all that it takes a great deal of work to get people to become killers, or supporters of killers then? Such sheltering isn’t easy and it aids greatly, along with the other web of lies that gets us into war after war after war. Those promoting such wars get rewarded handsomely. We get the blood soaked bill. Any war crimes are swept away and nothing happens because both official parties are run by the same kinds of people. The paper tiger of the UN does nothing, not even tokenism because the US is so powerful. Bribes and threats work in the criminal under world and in international relations. Only no criminal had access to the kinds of weapons and man power they do through the US military.

I have never looked at the world in black and white, and example of someone who does was our 43rd president. That is scary!

I usually hear about “death education” from the Christian supremacists who are all against it so I would say it never gets off the ground because of them.

How about going to the Congo and training the women how to fight and use the AK-47s and let them go to take care of their rapists. (Let women do it so they can feel comfortable with them.) It may be the only way to stem this horror. Some of the worst of humanity at work. Any ideas <n>Nemesis-2010</b>?

Another video with articles concerning sex, this time rape in the Congo. Am I the only one around here who notices this? Tread lightly Night-Gaunt, the innocent unknowingly enter into the dialogue of war, U.S. imperialism and the NewAtheist/neocons, not knowing the motivations of such challenges. This guy sounds like a programmed talking machine.
Do me no favors Nemesis, the field is open as to who gets the last word.

Gee, Night-Gaunt, your advice is excellent for flesh and blood
wimmen, but for She, I’m afraid it’s too late. And everything you
said about the effects of stiletto heels, yup, you’re right. But I’d be telling my secrets if I said what I really do! Besides what
would that do to my TD image? We have to remember this electronic
realm is about as ghostly as it can get. I was having a great time with
the humor you gave (which I must say ought to be shown a lot more,
as it is high caliber). I use the TD forums to clarify my own thinking,
to read what ideas and insights others present and then to assess them
for what I can conclude is their merits. Sometimes that means having
publicly expressed conflict when ideas clash. And since I usually do
not have any allies, that is when my stiletto heels come right in handy
right with those pistolas. I think you get it.

Mamma Mia! Now I know where my stash of handbaskets went!
nemesis2010 you took them!

”War promotes all the obscenities including abuse of women as we see in the ongoing horrors of the Congo wars where rape is a past time for the soldiers in whole towns with nothing and no one to stop them. Too bad the USA, UN and NATO find no cause for them to act there. I would rather them there than anywhere else right now.”

War abuses everyone and everything, not just women. You do it a disservice by making it a sex issue. Rape isn’t limited to females and it could be argued that rape is even more traumatic and violent for a male than it is for a female.

I’ve worked and lived all over the world and I can tell you unequivocally that in the Congo I was more cautious and wary of the possibility of losing my life than I was traveling to and from and working in Saudi during the 1973 Arab/Israeli war. Those people do not think like you. It isn’t only a different world, it’s a different century—except for the modern technology.

By Night-Gaunt, September 2 at 5:46 pm

”Too bad the USA, UN and NATO find no cause for them to act there. I would rather them there than anywhere else right now.”

So you’re against Bush War II but you wouldn’t be against invasion and occupation in a country or section of the world for which you harbor stronger altruistic feelings.

The African continent has 54 countries and is the second largest and second most populated (predominately black) continent in the world. They’ve only recently had the yoke of European colonialism lifted from their shoulders and now you want to send a horde of predominately white Americans and Europeans into their lands for their own good. Do you think that they might have heard that one before?

What about North Korea? It’s one short of a divine trinity communist totalitarian dictatorship where we know people are starving in huge numbers and suffering unspeakable horrors. Should we invade it?

Compare North and South Korea, and then take a look at Viet Nam. Should we have stayed in South Viet Nam? Did we make an even bigger mistake for pulling out? In Ethiopia the aid sent by the West to curtail the mass starvation and genocide helped prolong the suffering. In Cambodia the West maintained a hands-off policy and the result was the same. Almost half the Cambodian population was wiped out.

Take a look at all the trouble spots around the world then categorize them. What is at the root of the problem: Religion, nationalism, race, political ideology, etc.? Then tell me if you see a pattern.

”Death is either glorified in the movies but in real life it is considered a bad idea to have death education. Not much different from what was normal in the 1800’s when school children were shown what happens when your body dies. Try that now an some go apeshit over messing up their kids. Or the fear and loathing of any American dead and no interest in the hundreds of thousands killed by our imperial actions. Death averse for Americans, yes. [The only antidote is existence after death is all they really have it isn’t embraced as our adversaries have.]”

I’ve never heard of anyone promoting death education, especially not with respect to public schools. Given the battle we’ve had with loony creationists and IDers do we really want to open another can of worms? You know that death education to believers will amount to: if you die in Jesus you go to heaven to be with the lawd forever and if not you go to hell and burn in hell fire and sulfur and eternal damnation. Not exactly the type of education I’d agree to.

It’s normal to view the deaths of the enemy in a lesser light than those of “our own.” (I like Richard Alexander’s [biologist] terms “within-group amity” and “between-group enmity.”) That’s the way we are wired by evolution Night Gaunt. Do you feel the same intensity of sorrow when you suffer the death of a loved one as you do when you read of someone killed in a car accident? Altruistic feelings have to have limitations or we couldn’t go on.

In addition to that we’re not all possessed of the same amounts of altruistic ability genetically and we all have different filters through which those thoughts and feelings are processed. And don’t forget, the within group amity/between group enmity changes dependent on situations. During WWII Germany was our despised enemy and Russia somewhat of a within group friend. As soon as Nazi Germany was defeated those classifications changed. The same happened with Japan.

Actually you should be glad that you live here in a more enlightened society. In more tribal societies the death of one’s enemies is seen as something to be celebrated. When insurgents plant an IED they don’t fret the lost of life, they celebrate the death of the enemy –even if the enemy is nothing more than tens of women, small children and a couple of non-political fathers, brothers, sons, etc. buying food in a market.

Our altruistic feelings are one reason the government came up with embedded reporting and prohibitions against filming of all the body bags of our dead. Remember the images splattered all over the evening news during Viet Nam? We live in a very sheltered society here. The aforementioned, the all volunteer army, deferred war cost, and Cheney’s no bid-cost plus privatization scheme, are the reasons they could start the war (besides the 9/11 attacks) and especially that which has allowed the government to continue it for 7 years with little or no political repercussions.

”You are on the wrong website in many ways. The essence of who you are is located in your lower chakras and it is always a downer to deal with such sickies.”

Sickies? I’m not the one who confuses acts of torture and mutilation with acts of erotic desires. Have you ever considered seeking professional help?

There are no such things as spiritual wheels or turnings… it… like all metaphysical belief… is pure bullshit.

My saying that the essence of who you are is in the tons of family-sized buckets of KFC and containers of imitation cheddar cheese—that the Republicans and corporations force you to devour like a enraged beast, by having secretly contaminated all food stuffs with chemicals that render you unable to control your ravenous appetite—is much more credible than your chakras.

Given your fascination (<- properly used here) with Chris Hedges I can’t help but wonder if you are so sick of mind that you actually think him capable of siding with a demented beast like you on this issue? Has your mind reached such a state of fetidness that you are unable to (or perhaps have never even considered) realize that no self-respecting man of Chris Hedges’ caliber would dare to publicly evangelize or defend the abhorrently barbaric religious practices of infant and child mutilation? I dare say that if Hedges would read your inane and insane defense of that abhorrently barbaric practice that he’d feel sick to his inner most being and probably would want to vomit you out of his mouth.

I really do not care to have any further discourse with you. I find you to be a very vindictive, envious, hateful, spiteful, caustic, loathsome and repulsive reptile as well as one of questionable mental stability. You had the opportunity to have the last word but it wasn’t enough, you simply had to return and attempt to further besmirch my person. Accept the fact that you blew the opportunity to have the last word and leave me alone.

”Ignorance more frequently begets confidence, than it does knowledge.” - Charles Darwwin

” You don’t want to talk about your fascination with sexual mutilation?” You don’t want to talk about your fascination with sexual mutilation? Why not?

You’re continuing to build up your straw man. Who said I had a “fascination” with sexual mutilation? No one but you! And once again you used the word “sexual” which I believe is a warning flag that you have very serious problems. There’s nothing “sexual” about the mutilation of infant and child genitalia; at least not to normal people. There is nothing sexual about infants and children. What kind of depraved and maladjusted intellect is unable to distinguish the difference between torture and mutilation of children and normal adult erotic desires and activity? In my opinion only that of a demented, self-loathing, even-toed ungulate of the Suidae family.

Many millions of people—of whom I’m one—are outraged and enraged at the thought that religious troglodytes can promote and/or perform the ”abhorrently barbaric”religious practice of infant and child genital mutilation in the 21st century with impunity… including the World Health Organization and the United Nations. Soon though, as always is the case, the civilized world while prevail and humanity will finally see an end to that barbarity.

Having made my position clear it should be obvious that the reason I don’t want to talk about my “fascination” with the religiously motivated and abhorrently barbaric acts of child abuse and torture through genital mutilation is because I haven’t any fascination with it but rather I am repulsed and outraged by it. I want it to end!

By elisalouisa, September 2 at 9:29 pm

”Where is your vagina talk and Ovarian feast?”

It’s surprising that someone who embraces mutilation of genitalia is so repulsed by the word vagina. Could it be that you’ve a problem with the female organ in question and/or perhaps human sexuality? Is that why you loathe the word vagina yet embrace the act of mutilating it? Is that your way of killing that which you see as evil?

If a grown woman wants to have clitoral circumcision and vaginal infibulation performed on her, I’ve no problem with that; because she is an adult. But when adults forcibly restrain an infant or young child and perform such acts of abhorrently barbaric torture and child abuse they are condemning an innocent child—who has absolutely no voice in the matter—to a life of unspeakable horrors, avoidable pain and health issues, psychological trauma and deprivation of adult sexual gratification. Today there are over 100 million women who have to live with that indignity.

Do you understand the difference between an adult making a decision for himself/herself and an adult making a decision on behalf of a child; especially an adult making a decision—on behalf of a child—that will negatively affect the child for his/her entire life? A decision from which there is absolutely no recourse? It’s obvious that you do not!

How is what you are promoting any different from what the Nazis did? They sterilized women with heavy doses of radiation and castrated men without anesthesia. Mutilated their genitalia and organs! The victims had no choice either! How is what you promote any different?

That you cannot be moved with compassion and rage thinking of a little girl being forcibly restrained by 3 or 4 adults and having that abhorrently barbaric religious practice performed on her—sans anesthesia—fills me with perplexity, astonishment and revulsion.

”How did we go from atheism to taxes? Your diatribe against me speaks as to your hypocrisy and name calling which you just put out and when called on your spin of facts you again move to another topic.”

I had hoped this finished. I had a feeling after reading Leefellar’s comments that you’d probably come snorting. It was perfect… you had the last word which is what all 3Bers demand. I only wanted to finish my discussion with Night-Gaunt and leave this topic. But you just can’t let go, can you?

I don’t spin facts woman. And the proof is in how you ignore the facts, form a straw man argument from them, then knock down your straw man, and feel good about yourself. But I’m not the straw man.

I—not we—went to taxes because of your many comments about Bush War II preventing the government from providing needed social services here at home. Of course you didn’t write it as eloquently as I have because… well… because you don’t have the talent.

By elisalouisa, September 2 at 9:29 pm

” Don’t you find your comments against taxes rather dull when exotic subjects such as sexual mutilation and ovarian feasts have been the topic?”

This is your style of ad hominem. It’s surreptitious and the reason many fail to see the putridness behind your saintly façade. There’s innuendo and obscene insinuation. And when I respond in a fashion that exposes your technique and questionable intellect you cry out “woe is me” and play the victim. But in just a few paragraphs more I shall tear down that saintly façade and bring to light the sebaceous Lamashtu that cowers behind.

No, I don’t find the subject of taxes dull.

Do you see the adjective that you used; “exotic”? Why did you choose that adjective? You chose it because that adjective in the context in which you are using it here renders negative connotations which you attach to your straw man nemesis. You rely on this furtive method of ad hominem in order to maintain your saintly façade while maliciously attempting to destroy—through deceit rather than sound argument—the credibility of those that oppose you.

(With respect to defense of child mutilation and torture there is no sound argument, only the ranting of the unhinged. Do not doubt that if it were white children instead of mostly black and brown children being mutilated that you and your ilk would find yourself where you belong… behind bars!)

All one has to do—if one was really interested in facts—is peruse all of my comments about the ”abhorrently barbaric” and religiously motivated acts of child abuse and torture to know how I feel about genital—not sexual—mutilation of infants and small children.

Was your use of “sexual” a Freudian slip? Do you hate sex or perhaps you see the mutilation of infant and child genitalia as sexually stimulating? Anyone evangelizing the genital mutilation of infants and children—IMO—is seriously debased so I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t something Freudian and sinister in your use of that word in relation to what is clearly child abuse and torture.

Shenonymous I would not recommend the stilleto heels as they are used by men to dominate women by making them wear such things that are abnormal and debilitating over time to your posture, balance and your ankles. Just so you breasts are thrust forward and you “arse” pushed out for not your pleasure but their pleasure. (You wouldn’t see any man dressing that way normally would you? Or a male equivalent?) Also it plays havoc with you balance. Show them your no tool and wear normal shoes for arch support, ankles normal, good posture and excellent balance.

Do some posters derive pleasure from name calling/putdowns; one does wonder. Such spirits are catching and the atmosphere of a thread can quickly deteriorate as has happened here. The plus side is that in rereading the writings of the authors suggested and also those of the New Atheists, more knowledge has been gained convincing me that:

The folly of humankind, however, is pervasive. It infects all human endeavors. It has not exempted itself from institutional religion or the cult of science and reason. The greatest danger that besets us does not come from believers or atheists. It comes from those who, under the guise of religions, science or reason, imagine that we can free ourselves from the limitations of human nature and perfect the human species.
from On Secular Fundamentalism Chris Hedges
The folly of humankind is indeed pervasive and hopefully when on other threads the atmosphere deteriorates into name calling my decision would be to quickly exit, moving on to another thread where the posts continue to center on the contents of the column.
As for my part, I shall not comment on the fact that a new postage stamp honoring Mother Teresa has been issued. More humorous material for the likes of Christopher Hitchens? We shall see.

elisalouisa, thanks for such kind words. For some reason I feel sorry for some of the posters here, and it seems they feel sorry for me, if we all feel sorry for each other, what does this mean? Any possibility for some of these so sorry individuals to find common ground?

Guess one could address each others sorry asses, by bringing up hypocrisy, then move on to more apparent matters like stupidity and even maybe discuss Truthdig number 3’s inability to use reason for starters.

Womens rights seem to be in direct conflict with the standard policy promoted by the old dusty religions, ... and such a touchy subject too, one should never,....no!.... actually must never go there, instead lets make something up,....Oh, I know,.....how about conjuring up something like “New Atheists”, what great flack to ignore reality, best best of all no reason is necessary!

Not sure if Religion poisons everything, but it seems to do something to the mindless numb nuts who seem to so blindly follow. I feel Hitchens overstated his opinion to get some results, it seems to have worked.

Well I’m glad Night-Gaunt you brought up the subject of religion.
But I want SheDevil to digest it a bit first. The awarded title was
given with the intention of insult, but you too know me now long
enough to know that “SH_T” never works. The disaffected poster
was given my last handbasket with her arse in it. Which is why I
think Anarcissie tried to arbitrate, not between the condemner and
the condemned, but between the SheDevil and She! ROFLMAO Well,
I think that was what Anarcissie was doing. Yeah, she was I’m pretty
sure. I’m checking out a new basket maker though to restock my
depleted supply.

You made me laugh so much though N-G. I do have an avenging TD
costume but I don’t know about it covering a SuperHero. My flaming
swirling red hair, stilletto heels, and 2-smoking pistolas usually
holstered unless a freakie makes an attack. I really like your archetypal
apothegm “The ultimate anti-sexist on the hunt for such lower fodder
of humanity…to set them straight!” That made my day. I can’t stop
laughing.

Nemesis:You don’t give a damn about war which is a violent State sponsored coercion. You’re disappointed that while the U.S. government is spending huge amounts of resources in Iraq it cannot or will not use its coercive power on your fellow citizens to finance your sorry ass and your special “anointed”
projects. You want the government to extort—through its coercive power—your fellow citizens and redistribute their hard earned income to you and your pet projects. You aren’t satisfied with your piece of the pie and want the government to take from those who have earned their bigger slice and give it to
you. You’re a hypocrite of enormous proportionselisa How did we go from atheism to taxes? Your diatribe against me speaks as to your hypocrisy and name calling which you just put out and when called on your spin of facts you again move to another topic. Don’t you find your comments against taxes rather dull when exotic subjects such as sexual mutilation and ovarian feasts have been the topic? You don’t want to talk about your fascination with sexual mutilation? Why not? Where is your vagina talk and Ovarian feast? You are on the wrong website in many ways. The essence of who you are is located in your lower chakras and it is always a downer to deal with such sickies.

Thank you for the kind words Patrick Henry. You quote and speak of Nietzsche quite often Nightgaunt, so does David
Bentley Hart in his book Atheist DelusionsDavid Bentley HartThere is something to be said, surely, for Nietzsche’s prophecies regarding the ‘Last Man.’ At least, when one considers our culture’s devotion to acquisition, celebrity, distraction, and therapy, it is hard not to think that perhaps our vision as a people has narrowed to the smaller preoccupations and desires of individual selves, and that our whole political, social, and economic existence is oriented toward that reality.
I have even more appreciation for Chris Hedges now. He receives his share of mudslinging weekly but it doesn’t stop him. He bravely goes on. What a model for those who have the courage to stand and say what they believe, be it about,
war, religion and the morality of dealing with such issues. His video does give me courage. Positive thought: Chris Hedges and I share some of the same mudslingers, the very same mudslinger(under the disguise of poor humor) poster takes the time almost each week to sling mud at Chris Hedges in self-
congratululatory tones, marveling the ability to do so without the benefit of reading Chris’s column. Again, I am in good company with Chris Hedges, what more can I ask?

Although I admire your perseverance and persistence, continually spouting drivel trying to be funny, I cannot help it, but to feel sorry for you, since you always fail miserably. Why don’t you try to be a buffoon instead, although I am not optimistic about your prospect at that either!.
Eventually, everyone has to know his lilmitations and may be it is about time for you to stop trying to be funny.
By the way, after repeatedly saying that your memory is foggy about your life in the Marine Corps, all of a sudden you have vivid recollections about your period there!. Why is that??!! Mentioning many unimportant “innocent” details is a sure sign of a liar!

Humm…Shedevil, that could be used in your favor. Quite a moniker. Though it can go both ways as to whether it is an insult or a compliment. It is all in your brain as to whether it is. I wouldn’t call you such but then I am pedantic me. Only if it were say some kind of avenging costumed Super Hero. “The ultimate anti-sexist on the hunt for such lower fodder of humanity…to set them straight!” Could read the tag line. Nope! Better stop there or I could be compiling a comic that only a woman should create and write—-if at all. (Tongue firmly piercing cheek.)

You have my vote for chickenshit award. You can place it beside your celebrity pumber ribbon. Anyone who can make it from El Toro to TJ and back in 5 hours deserves some kind of racing trophy as well.

Elisalouisa makes many fine points and counterpoints of her beliefs and has by all means been the most respectful poster on this thread. Nemesis is firm in his beliefs and articulates well. I never knew he was a widower which I share in that same sad reality.

Naw, Leefeller, I’m plumb outta handbaskets. And far as I’m
concerned yo’arse is covered by the Great Unyun. After all, she’s
a shegoddess, or sumtin. And I figure if the Great Unyun has
appointed you as her link to the earthpeople, your moderate and
not too unpleasant sexism can be allowed to sink, (or is that slink?)
below the horizon, you know like the sun that sets early in winter.
LOL

Speaking of sexist remarks: The other day, I was viciously called a
Shedevil, with a capital S, on the old resurrected October 2009 War
is a Hate Crime Hedges article where I was damned to hell by a
msamericanpatriot who came unglued over my opinion about
homosexuality. Well you are familiar when the Shester gets freaky
over freakies. Anarcissie felt the need to referee but it didn’t do
much good. Hahaha Could that have been a case of mistaken sexism?
Anyway, I just don’t know how a rollypolly guy like you can make
serious sexists remarks anyway. You might express them but they
don’t get very far, cause I imagine your voice is kind of whispered
falsetto from wearing those tight panties. Yikes!

The major contradiction is that the primary religion here, Christianity, in the USA is the death cult which promises good things upon death. Though from my reading of it the judgment takes place first after resurrection in all new perfect bodies. Then upon Judgment, we are sent against our will and choice to the few in Heaven and the rest of us to be tortured forever in what is now called Hell. Once the Oligarchs get that same kind of fire in the belly, don’t care about dying like Al-Quaida and the other small groups then the American Empire would move to a more deadly level & the fear of casualties will end.

I agree with both Pascal & Nietzsche concerning the latter. Pascal would rather be in an interesting Hell than a boring Heaven and Nietzsche considered that the most interesting people would be sent to Hell which would fulfill Pascal‘s want. But that is just a wistful exercise, nothing more.

What I perceive as difference’s in perception on different points of view, seems to be mostly depending on the one attempting to do the perceiving.

In my case I got my arise handed to me in a hand basket by the Shester, and I did not get me panties in a k-not, well because….. I do wear panties, though not while I was in the Marine Corps.

Damn it Nemesis, you handed Elowisa her roasted arse in a hand basket and I doubt she even noticed, but what pisses me off, this could possibly lower my chances of winning “The Chicken Little Award of the Year” ....then, there is those Imbicile twins, Truthdig number 3 and Patrick Henry breathing down me neck publicly kissing Elsas roasted ass. My chances may be close to impossible but there is always hope. If Elsia did not run off, there may still be a chance for me if she does not miss any of my inane Chicken Shit posts!

Nothing cheap unless your words are of low value since they were the ones that proved my point and elicited the deflection after. Maybe you should recalibrate your shots if they are so cheap. I give you all that I got so it is chromium plated.

Death is either glorified in the movies but in real life it is considered a bad idea to have death education. Not much different from what was normal in the 1800’s when school children were shown what happens when your body dies. Try that now an some go apeshit over messing up their kids. Or the fear and loathing of any American dead and no interest in the hundreds of thousands killed by our imperial actions. Death averse for Americans, yes. [The only antidote is existence after death is all they really have it isn’t embraced as our adversaries have.]

War promotes all the obscenities including abuse of women as we see in the ongoing horrors of the Congo wars where rape is a past time for the soldiers in whole towns with nothing and no one to stop them. Too bad the USA, UN and NATO find no cause for them to act there. I would rather them there than anywhere else right now.

It is a good thing to hear that the number of automatic circumcisions are down. Hospitals use to do it automatically unless you said otherwise. I was a victim in 1957. Now if we could just stop the mutilation of women, girls and boys it would be a grand day indeed.

”No, just don’t talk down to me with that cutsie attack on my manhood with the reference to “panties” which are female. I would suggest taking the underwear off your head in response. First you make it sound like I am in some kind of emotional turmoil over this. Stop flattering yourself and breaking your arm patting yourself on the back for your “smarts” in this. Again another sly backhanded attack. Again how cute and precious you think you are that this tripe will work, will get a rise out of me in some way. I am not impressed with such juvinalia no matter how expert it is used. (Nor am I breathing any harder from your high school mental flailings in futility.) That tone was there and you didn’t address it. It sounds like you are deflecting instead of meeting it head on. If not then I will think less of you and move one.
Now how do you look at how death is treated in our death averse culture?”

You took a cheap shot and I returned one to you. As for your manhood I’m not the one crying in his beer about most women not finding him attractive or writing: “also with poor sociability skills alone time is what I have most of.” Perhaps your admitted poor social skills were responsible for the slight. Let’s call it even and move on.

About your question:

I’m not sure I understand it thoroughly. Who says that we have a death averse culture? Is that your opinion? If so what are you basing it on? Can you be less ambiguous?

Why do you ask? I hope that you’re not thinking about doing something stupid. There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. I had a period in my life where I had to learn that difference and when I did life got better.

” I ask why it is that you are so consumed with sexual mutilations? Is this normal for a widowed 66 year old male? Why the essay on circumcision?”

You’re not asking anything. You’re making a desperate, filthy and vengeful indirect insinuation because I’ve exposed the hypocrisy and perversity of your belief system. The essay wasn’t mine. It’s from the U.N. and demonstrates that many others the world over are decrying these abhorrently barbarous acts of child abuse & torture perpetrated by religious quacks like you on the most defenseless of our societies.

Since you opened this door of vengeful and indirect insinuation why don’t you tell us why the truthful tale about that woman in Wal Mart irked you so much? Did the description of a grossly obese woman stuffing her fat piggish jowls with Oreo cookies while sitting her cow-sized ass on a motorized cart rather than walking hit a nerve? Is that why you can make those idiotic remarks that watching FOX news makes you fat and Republicans and corporations make you obese? Could it be that rather than accept responsibility for your actions you blame republicans and corporations for your inability to control your own appetite? When written in inches, is your waist size a much larger number than your height? What’s behind your venomous assaults? Were you dumped by a husband who found love in the arms of another man or perhaps a younger much slimmer woman who didn’t nag him to death? Why are you fond of depriving other women of sexual gratification? What is driving that sick and perverse desire? You’re not dealing with a fool here woman… there’s something behind all your sinister hebetude.

Your morality elisa is like a snake’s belly, low to the ground and when one tries to expose it to the sunlight he must take much precaution not to get bit.

”War does not stop abuse of women. Rather war abuses women because of the crimes against humanity.”

Infant and child genital mutilation is not a crime against women or humanity. It is child abuse! Children! Babies! Little girls the age of my two granddaughters! Your excuse making about infant and child genital mutilation is similar to that of the “church” when it fought the abolition of slavery.

In the West if an adult has sexual contact—even consensual—with a minor they are branded as sex offenders and jailed. Just read all of the recent cases of teachers having sex with students. Yet 4 adults can forcibly restrain a child—the most defenseless of our societies—and mutilate their genitalia in the name of religion and for the benefit of men and instead of being denounced by you and your ilk it’s seen as an honorable & pious act. That’s why religion poisons everything!

”Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” –Blaise Pascal

By elisalouisa, September 2 at 12:06 am

”War does not stop abuse of women. Rather war abuses women because of the crimes against humanity. How can women raise families in Iraq; loved ones, innocent ones being murdered for the power/elite. That is what is happening. Nemesis’s concentration on what other cultures do to women encourages war, making Muslims seem like animals.”

You don’t give a damn about war which is violent State sponsored coercion. You’re disappointed that while the U.S. government is spending huge amounts of resources in Iraq it cannot or will not use its coercive power on your fellow citizens to finance your sorry ass and your special “anointed” projects. You want the government to extort—through its coercive power—your fellow citizens and redistribute their hard earned income to you and your pet projects. You aren’t satisfied with your piece of the pie and want the government to take from those who have earned their bigger slice and give it to you. You’re a hypocrite of enormous proportions.

”Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” –Martin Luther King jr.

Some sexists, Leefeller, just lead with their male member, especially the
new Viagra horde. What else can be said? Do you wear a badge that says
you are a sexist, and since you are married, guess you are always safe?
Specially if yo’wife is trained.

Shester, it is all in the lumping! My reference to the bulls running the fence, was a direct response to Elowesia and her sexist lumping fertility comment to Malcontent, and not anything stated by the Shester, though I did not make it clear by placing her name on the post. I seem to be having a comprhenson problem, along with my other problems!

My sexist comments were sexist and unlike most sexists I actually know and intended them to be sexist, though I have not made any sexist comments for the last 24 hours since my comment about the doctors office!

Nemesis, and others, it seems I somehow missed a whole series of poster comments and seem to have come in the back door. Nemesis, boot camp was different for me, compared to what you recite, for I do not remember, remembering any thing to be tested except maybe a breakdown on M14 parts? I suspect this is my selective memory.

My quick memories and experiences in the Corps on the surface, seem selectively to be only the more pleasant ones…... I have forced the unpleasant ones into the back quarter of my mind, sort of like way back in one of the 4 quarter sections TD3 never uses. For instance, I hated with a passion marching, really couldn’t stand junk on the bunk and the worry wart IG’s seemed bull crap,..... guard duty sucked royal and mess duty was such long hours, sleep became a novelty. No, not all fond memories when I pry them out and do some recalling, though overall, I appreciate my experiences in the Corps and glad I experienced them.

Mess duty sucked while, at the same time I sort of liked it, I had orders for Vietnam about the same time I had Mess Duty for a month, so it was up at 3 AM, serving chow to 10, somehow an hour for sleep then up for lunch, it seemed the same for dinner,...... one thing I do recall is ...... a guy in mess hall crew called a…” ROAD TRIP” So we went to Tijuana on a Friday evening after working Dinner! Now my recollections are these guys were real sexists, I just went along for the beer. So it was back to El Toro by 3 AM for breakfast. Well, I guess some more pleasant memories after all?

I can’t disagree with you PH, but also the trillion dollar fashion
industry and marketing also knows what pushes your erotic buttons.
Women are in competition for notice and will do almost anything,
even taking on ancient men’s view of reality, to appease and please
their glances. It is a sorry state of affairs, pun, but it is the way things
are. Besides our standard of beauty has degenerated to the most
titillating secondary sex attributes as can be presented without
complete nudity. Maybe we all should become nudists. Personally I
wouldn’t worry but I bet 309 million minus just a few here in America
would! Bodies are intimidating and then there is personal shame of its
condition. Besides it gets damn cold where I live, and damn hot as well
(I live in hell most of the year, least on another forum I’ve been
relegated to it, laugh laugh)